The indirection itself serves a perfectly valid purpose, which is to remove a lever of control from Russia. They are paying a premium for independence. Any giv

The indirection itself serves a perfectly valid purpose, which is to remove a lever of control from Russia. They are paying a premium for independence. Any given barrel of oil may or may not still come originally from Russia, but Russia can not use it as a lever any more, because there is no single channel any more. Russia would have to stop selling to everyone in the world, or raise prices to everyone in the world. This probably even drives prices down, which both helps everyone else and hurts Russia.