'Hide and seek': How Russia is dodging Western sanctions to sell oil to India

USA never thought, or even wanted to block the sale of Russian oil completely. That would raise global oil prices too much, which would be political suicide, and a problem for the world economy.

The only point of the sanctions is to make Russia sell their oil for less, to lower their profits. Yeah, India buys their oil, but Russia doesn’t have that many other buyers anymore, and it’s a lot less convenient for India to buy Russian oil, so India can really pressure Russia on the price of their oil.

I don't think it's that America can't enforce sanctions, it's that sanctions don't work against countries with valuable resources (because everyone else wants to buy them), or against many countries at once (because you've just created an alternative trading bloc), or against very populous countries (because companies will go far out of their way to be able to access large markets).