Foreign Policy has published a new analysis titled “Will Trump’s Russia Oil Sanctions Finally Sway Putin?”, exploring the far-reaching impact of the latest U.S. sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector. The piece highlights how the Trump administration’s sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s largest state-linked oil companies, aim to cut off crucial oil export revenues that fund the Kremlin’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
According to Petras Katinas, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) in Finland, these sanctions represent a significant escalation in Washington’s strategy:
“These sanctions touch all Russian crude oil, by pipeline and by sea,” Katinas explained. “The administration didn’t go after specific refiners—they went after the companies and their subsidiaries.”
This broad targeting, Katinas noted, extends legal and financial risk to any global company that trades with Rosneft or Lukoil, amplifying the sanctions’ global deterrent effect and reshaping energy market behavior.
The Foreign Policy article situates these measures within a broader Western sanctions campaign aimed at isolating Russia’s energy trade. Following similar actions by the European Union and the United Kingdom, these sanctions mark a unified transatlantic effort to weaken Russia’s war economy.
To read Petras Katinas’s full commentary and the complete Foreign Policy article, visit Foreign Policy. For more expert analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), visit the institute’s homepage.
Further Reading
Energy exports play a crucial role in Russia’s economy and have long served as a source of geopolitical leverage over dependent countries. Sanctions targeting the energy sector aim to reduce state revenues and diminish Russia’s geopolitical influence. Explore the latest research on sanctions against Russia and its energy industry in the Sanctions Portal Evidence Base section.
