Britain and the West must win the economic war for Ukraine and freedom

Editorial: Nations friendly to Moscow have been helping Putin get around Western sanctions

Olena Zelenska talks to our chief international correspondent Bel Trew in Kyiv (Anton Kulakowskiy)

It is heartening that the government has responded with such alacrity to calls from Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, to tighten the sanctions regime on Russia. As she pointed out so forcefully in her exclusive interview with The Independent, many states friendly to Russia are assisting the Kremlin in getting around international sanctions imposed on key individuals and on the wider Russian economy.

Sanctions have had an impact on the Russian war machine, and the exit of many Western industrial groups has denuded its ability to manufacture weapons. However, as Ms Zelenska reminds us, it is tempting for states such as Turkey, Kazakhstan and Armenia to try to leverage some short-term tactical gains from covert assistance to Russia. Even more damaging to Ukraine has been the studied yet misguided neutrality of the likes of South Africa, Brazil and India, while Iran and North Korea, experts in the field of sanctions-busting, have given Vladimir Putin plenty of advice as well as hardware.

China, though more circumspect about supplying single-purpose lethal material, hasn’t strayed too far from its “no limits partnership” with Moscow. Even Saudi Arabia, which recently hosted an international conference on the war with president Volodymyr Zelensky in attendance, has proved unhelpful in managing the post-invasion energy crisis.