“ What is surprising is that the rest of the world accepted a Russian
shadow-fleet in defiance to western sanctions(and an uninsured one at
that), and cooperation that allowed the Russians to easily and quickly
acquire that fleet.”

I’m not surprised at all and posted since day 1 that Russia would have zero problems selling all their oil. I think many folks underestimate how little the rest of the world besides the US/EU cares about Russia and the war. Heck, a good amount of regular people in the US think we shouldn’t be sending Ukraine a penny. It’s viewed as a local problem and even our media has made it very clear the Russian military can barely walk or feed itself, so why would anyone else be worried?