OPINION: Western sanctions on Russian oil exports are having the desired effect of reducing Kremlin revenues while keeping global crude movements flowing to tamp down energy price inflation, evidence suggests.

China and India are the main beneficiaries of the G7 price cap: Both of these developing countries are buying Siberian oil at reduced prices — boosting their fast-growing economies.

But are China’s President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in danger of falling into the trap that enveloped Germany and other European countries, which realised late in the day they were dangerously dependent on energy supplied by Russia?

And does the West want to help China economically at a time when many countries worry about the Asian nation’s increasingly muscular foreign policy?

Russia has long used gas as a weapon to pursue its aims: Ask Ukraine, which as far back as 2009 found its pipeline supplies cut off by Moscow in the middle of winter.