The new order has built a fleet of "ghost tankers", estimated to number more than 400, to fuel the trade. On the books, the price might say the crude shipments were US$59 a barrel. In reality, Chinese purchases were already breaching US$70 as far back as a year ago, Hinrich Foundation research showed.

The outlook on Russian exports is so robust that the International Monetary Fund in April upgraded Russia’s economic growth for 2024 to 3.2%, citing steady oil export volumes. The transcript of the IMF conference announcing its upward revision had this priceless exchange:

Question: Good morning. Anton with TASS Agency of Russia. Thank you so much for doing this. The same question. The growth rate of the Russian economy is high into 2024… In this case, can we say that Russia was able to successfully overcome the sanctions restrictions? Thank you so much.             

IMF spokesman Jose Luis De Haro: Yes.    

Global trade isn’t shrinking. It’s simply changing the way it moves around the world. As Visual Capitalist and the Hinrich Foundation have shown in earlier instalments of this visual series, the story is unfolding in geoeconomic blocs and currency moves.

Trade relationships increasingly reflect the realignment, Visual Capitalist research showed. Russia’s dependence on China has risen 7% between 2022 and 2023. Brazil’s is up 3%. US trade dependence on China has fallen by 1.2%; Ukraine’s on the European Union is up 6%.

In a geopolitical landscape of rising bifurcation, Russian trade is merely the most telling aspect of a world increasingly coming apart.

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