Instead, it's "wow, who could've known?!"
There's a reason why trade with the Russian proxies has increased by pretty much the amount that direct trade with Russia has decreased: because the enforcement of the sanctions doesn't work correctly and Europe hasn't found a single voice on it, and additionally doesn't want to bring down the hammer on anyone in order to not offend them.
Yet here we are, and I still don't know. You offered that the US does some enforcement. So why doesn't the EU? Surely we have the bureaucratic manpower.
> Instead, it's "wow, who could've known?!"
I don't know how to read this any other way. Enforcing sanctions properly is something the EU has struggled with (https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/strict-and-uniform... gives an example of DPRK collecting hostel revenue in Berlin for years with no penalties ever administered), but that is different from saying that "import by proxy" is was unknown and not banned.