One such aspect that remains a growing concern is the role of China in supporting Putin's War Machine.

A report published by Olena Yurachenko, Senior Analyst at the ESCU, claimed that China had become a "critical lifeline" for Vladimir Putin's war efforts. Comprehensive analysis in Third Best Option: China's Rising Role in Russian Access to Critical Industrial Equipment sheds new light on Russia's existing methods used to bypass Western sanctions in this regard.

Key Findings of the Report

As the report says, from 70 to 90 percent of all industrial equipment and components for all types of industries are supplied from external sources. All this resulted in making China a vital partner in ensuring Russia's military potential. According to the report, there are the following three key "workarounds" in this veil of secret assistance:

1. Re-export of Western Machine Tools: China serves as a re-export base where machine tools from Western nations can find their way to Russia even under sanctions.
2. Manufacturing at Chinese Factories: Along with this, machines imported by Russia also include those manufactured at factories in China that are run by Western companies, thereby bypassing direct sanctions.
3. Reliance on Western Components: Chinese machine tools, critical to the operation of Russian industry, in turn have a high exposure to Western components, technologies, and knowhow.

The Argument for Tighter Sanctions

She says her report finds that there is an excellent case for sanctioning the involved Chinese firms. But then, she quickly adds that such measures are difficult to effectively institute. Interconnectedness between China and Russia, besides the sizeable role that China plays in the global supply chain, makes it not easy to enforce any punitive measures against them.

Implications and Next Steps

The findings underscore a critical lapse in the current sanctions regime, in which Chinese involvement helps Russia circumvent Western economic pressures. As global powers wrestle with how to address these complexities, more comprehensive sanctions strategies might be sought that would account for such indirect channels of support.

The report calls for strategic reassessment of the sanctions policies to respond to the change in the nature of international trade and geopolitical alliances. It called for the nuanced use of sanctions that befit a world with a high level of global interdependence.

In summary, the ESCU report has been a sour reminder of how global alliances and trade dynamics shape and at times even undermine international efforts at constraining aggressive state actions. As the situation further unwraps, it shall be incumbent upon the stakeholders to offer serious thought to the strategies that would address these challenges.