There is a reasonable chance that an embargo will set off the internal disintegration of Vladimir Putin’s siloviki regime (the security men around Putin, ie KGB mafia), though on what timetable remains obscure. Will Russia’s patriotic generals agree to devastate the Varangian cradle of Kievan Mother Rus [the cultural ancestral homeland of modern Russia] with cluster bombs? I doubt it.

Professor Alan Riley from the Atlantic Council said the combination of central bank sanctions, ejection from the Swift payments system and an energy embargo could test this brutal but brittle regime to destruction. “We may reach the point where Putin can’t even pay his troops,” he said.

There is no point searching for ways to help Putin save face at this point. We are past such civilities. Putin’s operation must be closed down immediately by every means available short of NATO declaration of war.

Those in Europe still baulking at an energy embargo should study what happened in 1935 when Benito Mussolini launched a 400,000-strong invasion of Ethiopia, to the indignation of a world moving beyond imperialism. Calibrated sanctions enraged Mussolini without stopping him, but pushed him into an alliance with Hitler.

Today, the argument is that China will step in to buy the Russian barrels. But this is a myth. It cannot do so in a short enough time-frame to save Putin because Chinese refineries are not adapted to sulphurous “heavy” Urals crude.

Russian oil is almost unsellable. Shell is in public disgrace after scooping up “blood” barrels that nobody else would touch for a $US28 discount. JP Morgan says two thirds of Russian oil is currently shut in. Tankers will not go to the Black Sea ports. Spot oil transactions have stopped.

“We’re literally seeing millions of unsold barrels piling up,” says Citigroup’s commodity strategist, Ed Morse.

Brent futures flirted with $US140 on Monday. JP Morgan has pencilled in $US185 in a sustained stand-off. Barclays fears $US200 and a rise in European gas prices to €300 ($5450) MWh over the summer, 12 times its level a year ago.

These sorts of prices imply violent demand destruction and recession. It would be horrible for China, which uses twice as much energy per unit of GDP as France and Germany, and 2.5 times as much as the frugal UK. The worse it gets, the greater the strain on the Beijing-Moscow axis.

However, the critical caveat is that the West has ways to mitigate the shock, even after a total cut-off of Russian oil. OECD states keep a strategic petroleum reserve of at least 90 days (or should do). Morse says the Western Hemisphere could produce an extra 2.5 million b/d this year, much of it from US shale and tight oil, but also from Brazil and Guyana.

The US is sending diplomats to the Gulf. RBC Capital Markets’ Helima Croft says the Gulf states and Iraq have up to 2.5 million b/d in spare capacity that could be mobilised within 30 to 60 days.

All is forgiven in Caracas. Nicolás Maduro is back from the cold. Croft says a relaxation of sanctions could unlock 600,000 b/d. Add in China’s zero-COVID strategy, which cuts jet fuel use, and it is possible to see our way through this crisis. The rest will have to come from de facto rationing.

Canada has already banned imports of Russian oil. In my view, Britain should join them immediately and get ahead of the diplomatic curve, which it has failed to do over war refugees.

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There is no point searching for ways to help Putin save face at this point. We are past such civilities. Putin’s operation must be closed down immediately by every means available short of NATO declaration of war.

Yes, Putin might respond to an embargo by escalating to nuclear weapons, much as Tojo Japan responded to Roosevelt’s oil embargo in 1941 by bombing Pearl Harbor. But he will threaten to use such weapons again in the future if allowed to prevail today.

Western democracies no longer deem it morally defensible to fund Putin’s war machine with purchases of oil, gas, and coal. They want to see him behind bars in The Hague.

The Daily Telegraph, London