According to the Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Mikhail Popov on Sunday, the US increased its imports of Russian oil by 43% in the last week, totaling 100,000 barrels a day.

Popov told Komsomolskaya Pravda news that "the US forced Europeans to introduce anti-Russian sanctions, while not only continuing to import oil from Russia but increasing volume of [oil] deliveries for the past week by 43% up to 100,000 barrels per day!" 

The Deputy Secretary also detailed that Washington imported fertilizers from Russia while listing them as essential goods.

The US last month announced a ban on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports as a response to the Russian operation in Ukraine.

Read more: US, EU sanctions on Russia impact gas, oil, currency & more

Former US colonel and Eurasia Center Vice President, Earl Rasmussen, said the European Union's latest sanctions and economic retaliation against Russia will backfire and cause a massive recession in Europe. 

Rasmussen, who previously said that US troop deployment to Ukraine deters efforts to solve the conflict, said the European sanctions against Russia will throw Europe into a "historical recession".

The colonel stated that despite repeated assurances from Biden, Washington is in no condition to replace Russia’s plentiful and cheap supplies of natural gas to Europe with any alternative energy supply that is remotely comparable in either scale or cost.