EDITORIAL: Anti-Russian oil sanctions are back — no fanfare, no excuses, no Trump

Introduction: the revealing silence of a capital decision

June 17, 2026: a date that deserved more headlines

On June 17, 2026, the United States quietly reactivated sanctions against Russian oil — targeting Rosneft and Lukoil, the two pillars of Moscow's energy revenue machine. There was no Rose Garden ceremony. No prime-time announcement. No headlines breaking through the noise of a political news cycle already saturated with other crises. Just a regulatory update from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a few official lines, and the resumption of a financial pressure mechanism that had been suspended for 97 days — from March 12 to June 17, 2026 — under a waiver that gave Washington room to maneuver on the Iran-US nuclear negotiations. That silence is itself a signal. And it deserves to be examined.

The $2 billion cost of 97 days of silence

The reactivation of these sanctions is not a minor administrative detail. It ends a three-month window during which Russia had been able to sell its oil with reduced friction — a window that, according to S&P Global estimates, generated more than $2 billion in additional revenue for Moscow. Two billion dollars that financed drones, shells, salaries for soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Two billion dollars that the waiver allowed to flow while the world's attention was elsewhere. The fact that these sanctions are back is a real victory. The fact that they were suspended for 97 days — and that this suspension cost billions — is a real failure that must be named before celebrating the return.

Context: the sanctions war in 2026

Four years of economic pressure — and a machine that resists

The economic sanctions against Russia imposed since 2022 represent the most extensive financial pressure campaign ever deployed by the West against a major economy. The numbers are staggering: hundreds of sanctioned individuals and entities, exclusion from the SWIFT interbank network, embargo on technology exports, asset freezes, price cap on oil. These measures have had real effects: the Russian ruble has experienced historic lows, certain industrial sectors have been deprived of essential components, GDP growth has been constrained despite high oil prices. But they have not stopped the war. And that gap — between economic pressure and strategic effect — is the central question of the sanctions file in 2026.

Russia's adaptation: redirect, parallel circuits, reorganize

The reason is well documented: Russia has adapted. It has redirected its oil exports toward China, India, and other markets that do not participate in Western price cap mechanisms. It has developed parallel financial circuits — the SPFS system as a partial replacement for SWIFT, bilateral payment agreements in local currencies. It has reorganized certain industrial sectors to reduce dependence on Western components. These adaptations have not made Russia immune to sanctions — but they have reduced the marginal impact of each new sanction. The return of oil sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil on June 17 must be read in this context: it's a real blow, but it lands on a machine that has learned to absorb blows.

The Iran-US diplomatic deal: a new equation

Why the waiver existed: the Iran file as a variable in oil sanctions

The 97-day waiver on Russian oil sanctions was not born of goodwill toward Moscow. It was a byproduct of the diplomatic maneuver around the Iran-US nuclear negotiations. The 14-point memorandum of understanding negotiated in Islamabad, which structured the preliminary framework of an Iranian-American agreement on the nuclear file, required navigating a complex set of balances in global oil markets. Any significant tightening of oil sanctions — whether against Russia or Iran — risked sending oil prices upward and complicating the negotiations by creating economic pressures that could destabilize the fragile diplomatic environment. The waiver on Russian oil was, in part, a calculation: give the oil markets breathing room while the nuclear negotiations stabilize.

The price Ukraine paid for the diplomatic window

This calculation has its internal logic — the Iran-US nuclear deal is a priority of American foreign policy that has tangible effects on Middle East security, on the risk of nuclear proliferation, and indirectly on the architecture of alliances that supports Ukraine. But it has a cost: the 97-day pause cost Ukraine two billion dollars in additional Russian revenue. That cost was not absorbed by diplomatic abstraction — it was paid in real terms, in Shahed drones, in 152mm shells from North Korea, in the maintenance of a war machine that continues to kill. Any analysis that separates the Iran nuclear negotiations from the war in Ukraine is incomplete — these two files are financially and strategically connected.

Trump and sanctions: an ambiguous relationship with economic pressure

An administration that uses sanctions as bargaining chips

The Trump administration has a complex, sometimes contradictory relationship with economic sanctions as a foreign policy instrument. On one hand, it has maintained and strengthened certain sanctions packages — on Iran, on China — with a firmness that undercuts the narrative that Washington has completely abandoned multilateral pressure. On the other hand, it has used sanctions waivers, exclusions, and SDN list removals as diplomatic tools to open negotiating space — the Iranian waiver being the most significant example in 2026. This pragmatic use of sanctions — as leverage rather than principle — creates unpredictability that allies and adversaries must navigate.

For Ukraine, unpredictability has a concrete price

For Ukraine, this unpredictability is a source of concern. The Trump administration has, at times, signaled flexibility toward Russia that alarmed Kyiv and its European allies. The removal of several Russians from the SDN list on June 24, 2026 — including Ivan Potanin, executives of Novikombank, Sovcombank, and Bank Otkritie, two tankers (Vyacheslav Arshinov and Gennady Egorov), and two Turkish firms (IDA Asansor) — sent a mixed signal precisely as the Russian oil sanctions were being reactivated. It created a double-edged message: pressure restored on one front, relaxed on another. This dissonance is not an accident — it's the reflection of a foreign policy that pursues multiple simultaneous objectives, not all of them consistent with each other.

Russia's allies circumvent sanctions: the ground reality

Turkey, India, and the shadow fleet

The return of Russian oil sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil is only half the picture. The other half is the network of circumvention that has developed over four years to allow Russian oil to reach global markets despite official restrictions. At the center of this network: the shadow fleet — hundreds of aging oil tankers operating under flags of convenience, often uninsured by Western firms, which transport Russian oil through routes that avoid close inspection. This fleet, estimated at over 600 vessels, has been progressively sanctioned but continues to operate because of the difficulty of identifying and tracking vessels that constantly change flags, names, and ownership structures.

The tanker removals: mixed signals at the worst moment

The removal of the two Turkish tankers from the SDN list on June 24 — exactly a week after the reactivation of sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil — illustrates this ambivalence. These vessels were being sanctioned for participating in the circumvention of Russian oil restrictions. Their removal from the list — the same week the oil sanctions were reactivated — sent a signal difficult to interpret as a strengthening of the pressure. The official justification mentions a behavioral change by the companies concerned. But in the context of a sanctions campaign that Russia and its partners have spent four years circumventing, the optics are damaging. Every signal of relaxation — even justified — is exploited by Moscow and its propaganda as proof that Western pressure is wavering.

SDN list removals: contradictory signals from Washington

June 24, 2026: seven Russians, two ships, two Turkish firms removed

The June 24, 2026 removal of seven Russians, two tankers, and two Turkish firms from the SDN list by the US Treasury's OFAC came with an official explanation: the individuals and entities in question had taken steps to distance themselves from sanctioned activities. This type of removal — conditional on demonstrated behavioral change — is a standard mechanism in OFAC practice. It is designed to create incentives: showing sanctioned entities a path out of the list if they change their behavior. In theory, this mechanism strengthens the deterrent effect of sanctions by offering a reward for compliance. In practice, in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, every removal from the list is scrutinized as a potential signal of political softening.

The precedent problem: what removal signals to future evaders

The removal of Ivan Potanin and executives of Novikombank, Sovcombank, and Bank Otkritie — three Russian banks that had been sanctioned for their role in financing the war machine — is particularly significant. These institutions were not peripheral figures in the Russian financial system. They were important players in the economic architecture that supports the war. Their removal — even justified by documented behavioral changes — creates precedents that can weaken the overall integrity of the sanctions structure. And the precedent matters: every removal legitimizes the argument that sufficiently clever circumvention, followed by sufficiently credible dissociation, can lead to a path back. For the integrity of the sanctions system, this precedent has costs that outlast any individual case.

Kyiv's position: between gratitude and dissatisfaction

Ukraine welcomes the return of sanctions — and asks for more

Kyiv's reaction to the reactivation of Russian oil sanctions was measured: official gratitude for a decision that brings real financial pressure back against Moscow, combined with a clear and public expression of dissatisfaction about what remains insufficient. Ukrainian officials have consistently made the point that the sanctions regime — even when fully applied — generates less pressure than it could because of the circumvention networks that operate with impunity, the gaps in the oil price cap, and the SDN list removals that send mixed signals. The Ukrainian demand is not just for sanctions to be maintained — it's for sanctions to be tightened, their enforcement strengthened, and for the removal decisions to be made with greater consideration of their geopolitical signaling effects.

This position — grateful but demanding — is politically difficult to maintain in the long run. Kyiv needs Washington for weapons, financing, and political support. Criticizing American sanctions policy publicly, even diplomatically, risks irritating an administration that considers its support to Ukraine sufficiently generous. But silence in the face of decisions that cost Ukraine real resources — the 97-day waiver, the SDN list removals — is also costly: it normalizes the erosion of sanctions as a tool without requiring justification. Kyiv's position, documented in its official communications and statements by its diplomats, is a balancing act between alliance and accountability. It's a balance that deserves respect.

The G7 and the Évian commitments: what had been promised

The G7 financial architecture and its implementation gaps

The G7 summit at Évian had produced a series of commitments on Russian oil sanctions — including maintaining the price cap, strengthening enforcement mechanisms, and coordinating on circumvention networks. These commitments were made publicly, with fanfare, in a context where the political will to pressure Moscow was high and visible. The gap between these commitments and their implementation — illustrated by the 97-day waiver, the SDN list removals, and the partial application of the price cap — is a credibility problem. Not because the commitments were made in bad faith, but because the institutional machinery that should implement them — OFAC, the European Commission, the G7 coordination mechanisms — operates slowly, subject to political pressures that evolve faster than the regulations.

The discussion of the EU's 21st sanctions package, currently underway in Brussels, is the most concrete expression of European efforts to close the gaps identified since the previous packages. This package includes measures targeting circumvention networks, stricter controls on dual-use technology exports, and additional restrictions on Russian energy revenues. Its adoption — expected within the next few weeks — will be a real signal. But its actual impact will depend, as with previous packages, on the rigor of implementation by the member states and on the degree of coordination with American and British sanctions. The gap between announced packages and implemented packages has historically been the weak link in the Western sanctions architecture. The 21st package will be judged on its application, not its announcement.

The impact on the front: the price of each barrel of Russian oil sold

The direct connection between oil revenue and war capability

Ural oil was trading at approximately $58 per barrel in the weeks before the reactivation of sanctions — already below the global market price due to the sanctions discount, but still sufficient to generate enormous revenues for Moscow. Russia's annual oil revenues, even under the price cap, represent hundreds of billions of dollars — financing the defense budget, soldiers' salaries, weapons production, and the maintenance of an economic system that has managed to adapt to sanctions. Each barrel sold is a direct contribution to the war against Ukraine. This direct connection — barrel of oil sold equals weapons purchased equals Ukrainian soldiers killed — is the reason why the oil sanctions file is not a technical economic debate. It's a question of life and death on the front lines.

The reactivation of sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil specifically targets the two largest Russian oil producers — the companies that produce the most and generate the most revenue. Their renewed inability to access American financial markets, to insure their vessels through Western firms, and to conduct dollar-denominated transactions creates real friction in their export operations. This friction does not stop oil exports — Russia continues to find buyers in Asia — but it increases transaction costs, reduces margins, and forces resource allocation to circumvention rather than production. In a war economy where every dollar counts, this increased friction has real effects, even if they are not immediately visible in the military balance.

American public opinion and the future of sanctions

Domestic political dynamics and their impact on sanctions consistency

The long-term sustainability of the American sanctions against Russia depends not only on the strategic calculations of an administration — but also on the domestic political dynamics that constrain every administration. American public opinion on the Russia-Ukraine war has evolved since 2022: initial broad support has given way to greater polarization, with some segments of the Republican electorate showing fatigue toward a conflict perceived as distant and expensive. This political dynamic creates pressure on every administration to periodically signal flexibility — waivers, list removals, diplomatic openings — to maintain internal cohesion, even if these signals have costs in terms of external credibility.

The structural tension in American Ukraine policy — between strategic necessity and domestic political cost — is one of the most significant vulnerabilities of the Western support architecture. It creates an inherent unpredictability that Moscow exploits and Kyiv must navigate constantly. The reactivation of Russian oil sanctions on June 17 is a positive signal. But its sustainability — whether the next waiver request, the next SDN removal, the next political crisis will lead to a new pause — depends on dynamics that no official announcement can guarantee. And for Ukraine, this unpredictability is itself a strategic burden, forcing constant planning for scenarios where Western support might be reduced.

Russia and its strategies for resisting sanctions

SPFS, China, and the ruble: the alternative financial architecture

Russia's ability to resist sanctions is not primarily a sign of strength — it's a sign of preparation. Moscow had anticipated Western sanctions long before the invasion of Ukraine, particularly after the 2014 sanctions following the annexation of Crimea. It has built, over the decade between 2014 and 2022, a parallel financial architecture: the SPFS payment system as a partial alternative to SWIFT, bilateral payment agreements in local currencies with China and India, a sovereign wealth fund as a macroeconomic buffer, and a doctrine of import substitution in sensitive sectors. These preparations have not made Russia immune to sanctions — but they have reduced the impact of each new measure.

The most important element of this resistance architecture is the Chinese partnership. Beijing absorbs a growing share of Russian oil exports, provides components and technologies that partially replace Western supplies, and blocks any resolution of the UN Security Council that would strengthen the multilateral sanctions architecture. This Sino-Russian partnership — described by some as an alliance "without limits" — is the most significant vulnerability in the Western sanctions strategy: as long as China provides an economic alternative for Russia, the marginal impact of each new Western sanction is reduced. Addressing this vulnerability requires a China policy that clearly addresses the cost of this support — which the US is beginning to do with the 1260H list and technology export controls, but which has not yet produced a sufficient change in Chinese behavior.

What this reveals about the future of the sanctions regime

From unanimous consensus to fractures: the long-term trajectory

The Western sanctions against Russia were built on an unprecedented consensus — the most rapid and broad coordination of economic pressure in history. This consensus, real in 2022, has shown cracks since: Hungary's hesitations, the gaps in enforcement across European member states, the SDN removals by Washington, the complexity of secondary sanctions against third countries that circumvent. These cracks do not mean the sanctions architecture is collapsing — it remains largely in place and continues to exert real pressure. But they create a trajectory that, if not actively managed, points toward progressive erosion. The reactivation of Russian oil sanctions on June 17 reverses a fragment of that erosion. It does not reverse its overall direction.

The long-term future of the sanctions regime against Russia depends on a factor that no sanctioning country fully controls: the evolution of the war. If Ukraine achieves a military position sufficiently strong to negotiate a favorable arrangement, the sanctions will have done their job — even imperfectly — as part of a broader strategy that combined military support, financial pressure, and diplomatic isolation. If the war drags on without decisive progress, the political will to maintain the sanctions architecture will be tested by attrition. That attrition — in public opinion, in government coalitions, in economic interests that advocate for normalization — is the most serious long-term threat to the sanctions regime. And that threat is not addressed by any regulation, however well-drafted.

Ukraine's role in monitoring sanctions

Kyiv as a primary actor in sanctions enforcement

Ukraine has developed, since 2022, significant capacities for monitoring and documenting the circumvention of Western sanctions against Russia. Ukrainian intelligence and analytical agencies — working in coordination with partners in the Baltic states, Poland, and the United Kingdom — have identified and publicly documented dozens of circumvention networks: shadow fleet vessels, front companies in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, financial intermediaries that facilitate transactions in sanctioned sectors. This analytical work is not purely academic — it directly feeds OFAC and European Commission decisions on new designations and list additions. Ukraine is a primary actor in its own sanctions architecture, not just a passive beneficiary.

This role deserves to be recognized and reinforced. Kyiv's analytical capacities on Russian sanctions circumvention are exceptional — they are built from an intelligence and economic intelligence base that has no equivalent in Western agencies, precisely because no Western country is as directly motivated to identify and close every gap in the sanctions architecture. Strengthening the institutional mechanisms that allow Ukraine to feed its analyses directly into OFAC and EU Commission decisions — faster, with more systematized response channels — would significantly improve the effectiveness of sanctions enforcement. This is a reform that costs little and could yield disproportionate results.

The battle for secondary sanctions: the next step

India, Turkey, the Gulf: the third-country pressure challenge

The next frontier of effective Russian sanctions is secondary sanctions — measures that target third countries or companies that facilitate circumvention of primary sanctions. This tool, already used by the US against some entities in Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere, is politically the most sensitive. Secondary sanctions effectively impose a choice on third countries: do business with Russia or maintain access to American financial markets and the dollar system. For large economies like India — which has significantly increased its Russian oil purchases since 2022 — this choice is existential, and the US has been extremely cautious about applying it vigorously, for fear of pushing New Delhi further toward the Sino-Russian orbit.

On July 1, 2026, sanctions were lifted from four Indian companies that had been sanctioned for their role in transactions with Russian entities. This removal — justified by behavioral changes — illustrates the political dynamic of secondary sanctions: they are applied with enough firmness to create incentives, but relaxed with enough speed to maintain working relationships with indispensable partners. This calculated ambiguity has its logic. But it also has its costs: it shows all circumventing third-country actors that sufficiently active diplomatic pressure can lead to removal from the list. The lesson is not that sanctions are absolute. The lesson is that they are negotiable — which reduces their deterrent effect over time.

Conclusion: a real victory, an unfinished fight

June 17 as a partial turning point

June 17, 2026 is a real turning point — partial, insufficient, but real. The reactivation of American sanctions against Russian oil after 97 days of waiver restores an element of coherence to a pressure architecture that had shown a damaging gap. It sends a signal to Moscow — and to all the actors in the circumvention network — that the window is not permanently open, that Washington has not abandoned its financial pressure tools against Russia. In the broader context of a war that has lasted more than four years and a sanctions architecture that is more than two years old, this reactivation is not a revolution. But it is a necessary correction.

The fight is unfinished. The SDN list removals of June 24 create ambiguity that serves Moscow's narrative. The circumvention networks — the shadow fleet, the front companies, the alternative financial circuits — continue to operate. The EU's 21st package is in discussion but not yet adopted. The gaps in the oil price cap remain open. The geopolitical pressure on Washington to maintain flexibility — for Iran, for India, for Turkey — will not disappear with the reactivation of sanctions. The victory of June 17 must be built upon, reinforced, and protected against the erosion forces that have already produced one 97-day pause and that could produce others. That is the political work ahead. It is not finished. It has barely begun.

What this fight demands of democracies

The sanctions war against Russia requires from Western democracies a form of institutional discipline that sits uncomfortably with their nature. Sanctions are effective only if they are consistent, rigorously enforced, and resistant to the political pressures that permanently push toward exception, toward flexibility, toward normalization. These qualities — consistency, rigor, resistance to pressure — are virtues more associated with authoritarian systems than with democracies, which are structurally inclined toward compromise, negotiation, and short electoral cycles. The challenge for the democracies supporting Ukraine is to develop these qualities without losing their democratic nature — which means building institutional and legal frameworks that protect sanctions consistency from the political winds of each electoral cycle.

This challenge is not insurmountable. The European Union has demonstrated, with its successive sanctions packages, that democracies can maintain sustained economic pressure over time. The United States has maintained sanctions regimes against Iran, Cuba, and North Korea for decades, across administrations of different political orientations. The tools exist. The institutional memory exists. What is needed is the political will — renewed, reaffirmed, and institutionalized — to apply them with the consistency that the war in Ukraine demands. The reactivation of June 17 is a fragment of that political will. It needs to be much more.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Biases and positioning

I am pro-Ukraine and consider Western sanctions against Russia to be both necessary and currently insufficient. This bias shapes my reading of the June 17 sanctions reactivation: I present it as a step in the right direction while maintaining that it is insufficient given what preceded it. I have tried to present the diplomatic logic of the 97-day waiver and the SDN list removals fairly — these decisions have internal logic that deserves to be understood, not just condemned. All factual claims — dates, figures, entities named — are based on cited public sources.

What I do not know

The exact details of the internal negotiations that led to the waiver, the SDN list removals, and the conditions attached to these decisions are not fully public. The precise impact of the 97-day waiver on Russian oil revenues is an estimate based on S&P Global data, not a certified official figure. The trajectory of the EU's 21st package and its final implementation remain uncertain at the time of publication.

Sources

Primary sources

RBC Ukraine — US resumes sanctions against Russian oil — June 26, 2026

Euromaidan Press — Washington just removed seven more Russians, two ships, and two Turkish firms from its sanctions blacklist — June 25, 2026

ISW — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment — June 29, 2026

Secondary sources

Euronews — Temperatures rise over sanctions against Russia — June 26, 2026

Democrata.es — United States lifts sanctions on seven Russian citizens and two oil tankers — June 2026

Al-Ahram — Iran, Russia, and China discuss draft US-Iran accord — June 13, 2026