$320.7 billion is not a source

France 24 writes:

“Russia claimed on Monday that European Union countries purchased $320.7 billion worth of Russian energy resources since 2022, despite international sanctions imposed following the Ukraine invasion.”

That sentence gives you the posture of sourcing without the instrument of sourcing.

To make a number like $320.7 billion mean anything, a reader needs four basic handles, in this order:

1) Who, exactly, is speaking — and what artefact are they speaking through. “Russia claimed” names no ministry, official, statement, dataset, or report.

2) What is being counted. “Energy resources” is a fog category. Oil? Gas? LNG? Coal? Nuclear fuel? Something else? The unit is not defined.

3) The time window, with endpoints. “Since 2022” gives a start without an as-of date. A running total depends on where it stops.

4) Any auditable cross-check. No EU/Eurostat figure, no independent trade tracker, not even a plain line saying the claim could not be verified.

So the numeral is doing credibility work a document should be doing. It looks like reporting. But without the ledger, it is only a large number in a suit.