# NARRATIVE: Russian Oil Flows Freely as Washington Closes the Waiver Tap

> On June 17, 2026, without fanfare, the United States allowed General License 134C to expire — the third consecutive 30-day waiver granted

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-06-26
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/recit-le-petrole-russe-coule-a-flots-pendant-que-washington-referme-le-robinet-d

## Introduction: On June 17, America Let Its Tolerance Expire

### A waiver held upright by inertia

On **June 17, 2026**, without fanfare, the **United States** allowed **General License 134C** to expire — the third consecutive 30-day waiver granted by the **U.S. Treasury** to ease sanctions on Russian oil shipped by sea. No press conference, no solemn statement. Just the bureaucratic silence of a deadline quietly passing. But behind that silence lies a burning geopolitical reality: while **Washington** dithered with successive waivers, **Moscow** was pocketing **billions** of dollars in oil export revenues at record levels.

The genesis of this waiver is itself revealing of the contradictions in American foreign policy under **Trump**. When the war against **Iran** clogged the **Strait of Hormuz** and drove crude prices skyward, Treasury Secretary **Scott Bessent** justified **General License 134C** by invoking the need to protect **energy-vulnerable nations**. Read: protecting countries that buy Russian oil because they cannot afford the alternatives. A humanitarian logic that, in practice, functioned as an indirect subsidy to **Putin**'s war machine.

### The Iran war as the triggering context

**General License 134C** was born of a crisis within a crisis: the conflict between the **United States** and **Iran** in spring 2026 had paralyzed maritime traffic through the **Strait of Hormuz**, through which roughly **20 percent** of global oil consumption transits. Faced with soaring prices, **Washington** decided that allowing Russian oil to flow freely was preferable to a global energy crisis. It was a pragmatic decision — understandable in an emergency — but one that opened the door to three months of tolerance that **Moscow** exploited with remarkable efficiency.

The end of hostilities with **Tehran** and the reopening of the **Strait of Hormuz** changed the equation. **Trump** said it himself at the **G7**: **"Oil is flowing now."** Which means: the justification for the waiver has evaporated. Which also means: the logical next step is tightening sanctions. The question is whether the **Trump** administration will have the consistency to sustain that logic in the weeks and months ahead.

*There is something profoundly cynical in the mechanics of American waivers. We give ourselves a clear conscience with "humanitarian" exemptions while indirectly funding an army that bombs Ukrainian civilians. On June 17, Washington did the right thing — but three renewals too late.*

## The Waiver Mechanics: Three Times 30 Days — For What?

### General License 134C: anatomy of a repeat tolerance

**General License 134C** was not a one-off exception. It was the third consecutive renewal of the same **30-day** waiver, renewed each time after the **U.S. Treasury** had allowed the previous version to expire — twice — before resurrecting it. This hesitant choreography reflects a genuine tension within the **Trump** administration: on one side, the sanctions hawks who want to choke off Russian oil revenues; on the other, the pragmatists who fear the impact of rising crude prices on the American and global economy.

The result of this institutional hesitation was a perfectly incoherent signal sent to markets, allies, and **Moscow**. Each renewal of the waiver was read as a capitulation by **Washington** before the realities of the oil market. Each expiration was framed as a show of resolve. In between, Russian exporters kept delivering, Indian refiners kept buying, and **Kremlin** coffers kept filling. **General License 134C** is the perfect symbol of half-measures sanctions policy: constraining enough to irritate markets, not coherent enough to change **Moscow**'s behavior.

### The real impact on global oil markets

Oil markets received **Washington**'s contradictory signals with a mixture of confusion and pragmatic adaptation. Operators quickly understood that waivers would be renewed — and planned their purchases accordingly. **Russia**, for its part, used these 90 days of visibility to consolidate commercial relationships with Asian clients, negotiate long-term contracts with Indian refiners, and reinforce the logistics infrastructure of the **shadow fleet**. In other words, **Washington** gave **Moscow** time — the most precious asset in a period of economic warfare.

The true measure of the waiver's impact will be seen in the months following its expiration on **June 17**. If Russian exports drop significantly, the advocates of firmness will have been vindicated. If they hold via the **shadow fleet** and Asian markets, the skeptics will have been confirmed. Either way, the policy of successive waivers will have demonstrated the limits of a sanctions strategy that hesitates between resolve and flexibility.

*Three times 30 days. Ninety days of tolerance granted quietly, without conditions, without counterparts. Is that really how one sanctions a power that launched the largest war in Europe since 1945? Ukrainians reading these lines have every right to be bitter.*

## The Numbers That Sting: 6 Million Barrels a Day for Russia

### Exports at record levels during the grace period

While the American debate on renewing or letting the waiver expire played out, market data told an unequivocal story. In **May 2026**, **Russia** was exporting an average of **6 million barrels of crude oil per day**, according to **S&P Global Commodities at Sea** — compared to **4.9 million in February**. A rise of over **22 percent** in just a few months. Russian fossil fuel revenues reached approximately **726 million euros** in May, or about **$832 million**, up **2 percent** month-on-month, according to the organization **CREA**. **Moscow** was collecting more each week than some countries spend in a year on their defense.

The structure of these exports also reveals a major geopolitical pivot. While Russian exports to **China** declined — with maritime volumes down **23 percent** in May compared to the previous month — it was **India** that was filling and exceeding the gap. Indian purchases of Russian crude were on track to reach an **all-time record** by mid-June, averaging **2.35 million barrels per day** according to **Kpler**, surpassing the previous record of **2.16 million** set in **May 2023**. The **Paradip** refinery received its **largest Russian cargo in two years**. These are not abstract figures: they are the daily funding of **Putin**'s army.

### 726 million euros in one month: the Kremlin's cash machine

The **726 million euros** raked in by **Russia** in **May 2026** from fossil fuel exports represent more than **24 million euros per day**. To put this in perspective: it is more than the **European Union** disbursed in direct military aid to **Ukraine** in some months since the conflict began. Every day that sanctions fail to fully achieve their objectives, **Putin** has additional resources to pay his soldiers, maintain his equipment, and prolong a war that the free world hopes to see end.

These oil revenues have another direct consequence: they allow **Moscow** to fund the acquisition of military components from its suppliers — mainly Chinese — despite Western embargoes. Oil money funds the drones, missiles, and munitions that fall daily on Ukrainian cities. When you buy Russian oil — or tolerate others doing so — you are indirectly financing this cycle of destruction. That is why the waiver's expiration on **June 17** was a moral necessity as much as a strategic decision.

*When India buys Russian oil at record levels, it is simply exercising its economic sovereignty — one can understand that. What is harder to understand is that America provided legal cover for those purchases through its successive waivers. New Delhi did not need Washington's blessing. Washington had no reason to give it.*

## India at the Center: The World's Second-Largest Buyer of Russian Fossil Fuels

### New Delhi: between economic pragmatism and strategic complicity

**India** was the **world's second-largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels in May 2026**, with imports of **5.8 billion euros** according to **CREA**, of which **4.8 billion** in crude oil alone. In absolute value, only **China** bought more. The relationship between **New Delhi** and **Moscow** on oil markets is not new — it dates back to the earliest days of the war in **Ukraine**, when Indian refiners took advantage of the steep discounts offered by **Russia** to circumvent Western sanctions. But the scale of the phenomenon in **May-June 2026** exceeds anything previously observed.

India's total crude oil imports surged **8 percent** month-on-month, driven largely by a **21 percent** increase in Russian volumes. Indian state-owned refiners, which had suspended Russian purchases toward the end of 2025, resumed acquisitions in **March 2026** — and quickly made up for lost time with enthusiasm. This massive return of Indian buyers to the Russian crude market illustrates the fundamental gap between the Western sanctions strategy and the economic realities of the **half of the planet** that chose not to join this front.

### New Delhi between Washington and Moscow: the diplomacy of equidistance

**Modi** has met with **Putin** multiple times since the war began, while maintaining cordial relations with **Washington** and participating in Western multilateral forums. This equidistance policy — bought in part through discounts on Russian oil — allows **India** to maximize its economic interests while preserving its diplomatic room for maneuver. From the Indian perspective, it is strategy. From the Ukrainian perspective, it is economic complicity with the aggressor.

The **Trump** administration chose, through its successive waivers, not to force **India** into a hard choice. This is understandable from a geopolitical standpoint — **New Delhi** is a crucial partner in the Indo-Pacific strategy against **China**. But that logic has a cost: every dollar of Russian oil bought by **India** with implicit **Washington** blessing is a dollar less in the effectiveness of sanctions. Sooner or later, this difficult conversation with **New Delhi** will have to happen — with respect, but with clarity.

*India is not Ukraine's enemy — but its economic choices indirectly fuel Ukraine's enemy. That is an uncomfortable truth that Western diplomats prefer to state in private. One day, this conversation will have to happen in public with New Delhi.*

## China Pulling Back, but Not Absent: The Shifting Geography of Russian Purchases

### Beijing reduces, redistributes, and keeps its options open

The decline in Chinese imports of Russian crude in **May 2026** — a drop of **23 percent** month-on-month, against a backdrop of a **17 percent** fall in all maritime crude imports — should not be read as a gesture of solidarity with the **West**. It is explained first by cyclical factors: inventory effects, Chinese economic slowdown, and diversification toward other sources. Over the longer term, Russian exports to **China** remained up **35 percent** year-on-year for the first quarter, with volumes unloaded at the **Dongjiakou** terminal up **144 percent** compared to the previous year — a two-year record.

The case of **Turkey** also illustrates the complexities of the geography of Russian purchases. Turkish imports of Russian **Urals** crude were expected at roughly **161,000 barrels per day** in May, sharply down from the **302,000** averaged between January and April. **Ankara** was adjusting its purchases in response to political signals — but was still buying **2.8 billion euros** worth of Russian hydrocarbons in May. **Russia** has succeeded in building a sanctions-evasion sales infrastructure that, even if weakened, continues to function. That is the result of **four years** of patient construction of a war economy.

### China as buyer of last resort and pressure lever

The **Beijing-Moscow** relationship on oil is more complex than simple mutual dependence. **Beijing** holds considerable leverage: by reducing its purchases of Russian oil, it can exert real economic pressure on **Moscow**. The May 2026 declines show that this leverage exists and can be used — even if Chinese motivations were probably economic rather than political. For the **West**, the strategic question is how to persuade **Beijing** to deploy that leverage deliberately, in a direction favorable to peace in **Ukraine**.

This scenario remains hypothetical — **China** has shown no sign of intention to distance itself from **Russia** out of solidarity with **Ukraine**. But accumulated economic pressures could, over time, alter **Beijing**'s calculations. A **Kremlin** too economically weakened to honor its commitments to **China** — whether in energy exports or in technological partnerships — would become a less valuable partner for **Xi Jinping**. That is the long-term logic of the Western economic attrition strategy.

*China and Turkey are not partners of Russia out of ideology — they are partners out of calculation. And as long as Western alternatives are more expensive or more constraining, that calculation will not change. Western sanctions, however numerous, cannot alter an economic equation that markets are keeping in place.*

## Trump at the G7: The Threat of New Sanctions and What It Is Worth

### Cannes, June 2026: promises in a luxury palace

At the **G7 summit** in **France** in June 2026, President **Donald Trump** suggested that **Washington** might now **intensify pressure on Russia**. His reasoning was straightforward: Iranian oil has been flowing again through the **Strait of Hormuz** since the end of hostilities with **Tehran**. In plain terms: if Iranian crude compensates for Russian crude taken off the market, oil prices would not spike and sanctions could return to full effect. **"We'll be able to do it because oil is flowing now,"****Trump** declared according to sources present at the summit. G7 leaders for their part committed to **strengthening sanctions on the Russian war economy**.

The actual value of these declarations remains to be proven. **Trump** has a long history of sweeping statements about sanctions that never fully materialize. His European allies, who bear the economic consequences of Russian energy sanctions most directly, have diverging interests depending on member state. And meanwhile, Russia's **shadow fleet** infrastructure — that phantom fleet of tankers sailing under flags of convenience — continues to funnel crude toward markets willing to receive it. Well-intentioned declarations at the G7 do not dismantle the logistics networks that **Moscow** has patiently built since 2022.

### What the G7 actually promised — and what it can deliver

The **G7** commitments from June 2026 cover three axes: strengthening the oil price cap mechanism, accelerated designation of shadow fleet entities, and coordination with third-party countries to limit high-priced purchases of Russian crude. Each of these axes runs into real obstacles. The cap is only effective if non-G7 buyers respect it — which they have no obligation to do. Shadow fleet designations are circumvented by creating new entities. And coordinating with third-party countries requires diplomacy that takes months or years to bear fruit.

What could fundamentally change the equation is an American decision to impose secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil exceeding the cap — a measure **Washington** has been reluctant to take for fear of diplomatic friction with **India** and **China**. If **Trump** takes that step, the G7 declarations will carry concrete significance. If not, they will remain what they have always been: well-crafted communiqués that never quite reach the **Kremlin**'s pockets.

*Trump is right on one point: the end of the Iran crisis gives him room for maneuver he did not have before. But saying the right thing and doing the right thing are two different things. The Trump administration showed, with its three consecutive waivers, that it preferred flexibility to consistency. We will see whether June 2026 truly marks a turning point.*

## The Shadow Fleet: The Phantom Armada That Mocks the Sanctions

### Hundreds of tankers under flags of convenience

One of the great lessons of these four years of economic war against **Russia** is the unexpected effectiveness of the **shadow fleet** — that phantom armada of hundreds of tankers operating under flags of convenience from countries like **Liberia**, the **Marshall Islands**, or **Panama**, with owners hidden behind cascades of shell companies registered in the **United Arab Emirates**, **Azerbaijan**, **Hong Kong**, or **Turkey**. The **EU's 20th sanctions package**, adopted on **June 15**, specifically targeted this ecosystem: **24 entities** linked to the transport and export of Russian crude were designated, including the company **Lukoil-Western Siberia**.

But the shadow fleet problem is not simply a matter of blacklists. It is a question of financial and logistical architecture. For every tanker designated, two new ones are deployed under carefully constructed anonymous structures. The **European Union** banned in **January 2026** the import of refined products derived from Russian crude processed in third countries — a measure that the **United Kingdom** joined in **May**. But enforcing these rules requires international cooperation that allies struggle to maintain consistently. The shadow fleet thrives in the gaps of that imperfect coordination.

*The shadow fleet is living proof that sanctions without enforcement are wishful thinking. Moscow has invested years and billions to build an evasion infrastructure. The West keeps falling behind this reality. Every new sanctions package arrives a few trains after Putin.*

## The Russian Economy Under Pressure: Inflation, Recession, and the Illusion of Resilience

### The Bank of Russia cuts to 14.25% but the fever will not break

While oil exports were setting records, Russia's domestic economy was showing signs of growing fragility. The **Central Bank of Russia** lowered its benchmark rate to **14.25 percent** in June 2026 — less than the **14 percent** expected by the analyst consensus according to **RBC**. **Elvira Nabiullina**, the central bank governor, justified the modest size of the cut by citing **pro-inflationary risks** linked to budgetary spending exceeding projections. In plain terms: the **Kremlin** is spending so much on its war that the central bank fears an uncontrollable inflationary spiral.

The concrete signals of this economic strain were visible in the daily lives of Russians. In June 2026, at least **53 regions** were experiencing fuel shortages, with some gas stations implementing **rationing**. The price of a liter of gasoline had risen by **more than 3 rubles** in the Moscow region. On the night of **June 18**, nearly **200 Ukrainian drones** struck **Moscow and its surrounding area** — the largest attack on the Russian capital since the start of all-out war. A refinery in Moscow's southeast suburbs exploded, with footage circulating around the world. The budget deficit for the first five months of 2026 reached **6 trillion rubles**, roughly **61 to 62 billion euros**, exceeding the planned annual level by **60 percent**. And **Putin**, at the **St. Petersburg** forum, was claiming without blinking that the Russian economy remained as robust as the eurozone's.

*There is something tragicomic about a Putin who compares himself to the eurozone to prove his economy is doing well. The eurozone, whose main concern in 2026 is maintaining growth at 1.5 percent — not funding an army at forced march. When you are forced to compare downward, you have already lost the argument.*

## The EU Strategy: 20 Sanctions Packages and a Change in Duration

### From semi-annual to annual: a strong political signal

On **June 19, 2026**, at the **Brussels** summit, European Union leaders made a symbolically important decision: for the **first time since the start of the all-out war**, economic sanctions against **Russia** were renewed for **12 months** instead of the usual **6 months**. The spokesperson for European Council President **António Costa** announced the measure after consultations with Ukrainian President **Volodymyr Zelensky**. This change in duration — which may seem technical — sends a decisive political message: **Europe** will no longer debate the merits of sanctions every six months. **Moscow** can no longer count on European divisions to secure periodic relief.

The **20th sanctions package**, adopted on **June 15**, represented the broadest scope to date. **34 individuals** and **47 additional entities** were designated, covering the Russian military-industrial complex, shadow fleet logistics networks, Chinese suppliers of military components — notably **Shenzhen Minghuaxin** and **Xinxiang Richful Lubricant Additive Company** — and individuals responsible for pro-Russian **information manipulation** in Europe. High Representative **Kaja Kallas** summed up the collective ambition of the effort in a characteristically blunt formulation: **"Brick by brick, we are crumbling the foundations of the Russian war economy."** According to her assessment, sanctions have already cost **Russia** between **1 trillion and 1.3 trillion euros**.

*Kallas is right on the substance, even if results are slow to show on the Ukrainian battlefield. Brick by brick is the right metaphor — because this is not an economic war won in a single quarter. The shift from six to twelve months of sanctions may be the most important decision of this summit, and yet the least covered in the news.*

## Ukraine's Drone Fleet: Disrupting Russian Oil Infrastructure

### Strikes on refineries as economic strategy

It is impossible to understand the context of the oil waiver without integrating the Ukrainian dimension of the economic war against **Russia**. For several months, **Ukraine** has been intensifying drone strikes against **Russian refineries**, **ports**, and **tankers**. These attacks have contributed to disrupting Russia's domestic fuel market — one of the direct causes of the shortages in **53 regions** and the stock-outs at gas stations. By hitting Russian energy infrastructure, **Kyiv** applies a simple logic: if international sanctions cannot stop exports, production capacity on the domestic side can at least be degraded.

The massive strike on **June 18** against **Moscow** and its surrounding region — with the explosion of a refinery documented by images broadcast around the world — illustrates the growing sophistication of this strategy. **Ukraine** is no longer hitting only military targets: it is targeting the economic nodes that fuel the Russian war machine. This strategy complements Western sanctions in ways that diplomats cannot officially replicate. And it reminds the Russian population — through the price of a liter of gasoline — that **Putin**'s war carries a real and growing domestic cost.

*Kyiv does what sanctions cannot always do: strike directly. Each refinery hit means less fuel for Russian tanks and more pressure on the Russian population. I am not romanticizing strikes on infrastructure — there are always potential civilian casualties. But in this context, it is a strategy obeying the logic of total war that Putin himself chose.*

## The Oil Price Cap: A Tool Blunted by Market Realities

### $60 a barrel: a ceiling the market routes around

The mechanism of **capping the price of Russian oil at $60 a barrel**, put in place by the **G7** in December 2022, was supposed to limit Russian revenues while maintaining global supply flows. In **May 2026**, Russian **Urals** crude was trading at an average of **$82 a barrel** — well above the official cap. How is this possible? Because the cap is only applied by the countries that respect it, and the vast majority of Russian oil buyers — **India**, **China**, **Turkey** — are not party to the cap mechanism. **Russia** sells to the market, not to the Western ceiling.

The result is a sanctions architecture that presents the appearance of rigor while allowing most of the flow to pass through. The **European Union** has banned Russian oil imports — a commitment honored. The **United Kingdom** followed in **May** on refined products. But the **6 million barrels per day** that **Russia** exports no longer go to **Europe**: they go to **Asia**, at prices far exceeding the theoretical cap. **Moscow** has simply redirected its commercial flows toward partners who did not sign the cap agreements. This is the structural limit of sanctions that do not cover the majority of the global market.

*The $60 cap was a good idea in theory — keep Russian revenues low without depriving the world of oil. In practice, it has become a rhetorical tool that Moscow circumvents by turning to Asia. The West needs a more universal mechanism, or it must accept that the cap is symbolic.*

## Russia-China Trade: $250 Billion and a Growing Dependency

### The Sino-Russian drift: figures that tell a new dependency

Behind the oil figures, the **Russia-China** economic relationship has undergone a spectacular transformation since 2022. Bilateral trade rose from **$190 billion in 2022** to nearly **$250 billion in 2024**, before pulling back slightly to **$234 billion in 2025**. **Russia** maintains a trade surplus of **over $100 billion** with **China** — but this surplus is largely composed of energy sales whose prices **Moscow** no longer fully controls, since **Beijing** is the captive buyer. The dependency is mutual but asymmetric: **Russia** needs the Chinese market for its energy exports; **China** needs **Russia** for its discounted hydrocarbon supplies.

The most revealing fact of this transformation is monetary: **92 percent** of **Russia-China** bilateral trade is now conducted in **rubles and yuan** — compared to just **25 percent** before the 2022 invasion. **Moscow** has exited the dollar for this crucial commercial partnership. This choice carries profound consequences for Russian foreign exchange reserves, for ruble liquidity, and for **Russia**'s capacity to finance military imports in other currencies. **China** is now supplying critical military components to **Russia** — which explains why the **EU's 20th sanctions package** specifically targeted Chinese companies in this sector.

*Russia is becoming a satellite economy of China, and Putin seems not to see — or not to want to see — this reality. Selling yourself to Beijing to fund a war against Kyiv means trading your sovereignty for ammunition. That is not a strategic victory: it is an economic capitulation dressed up as resistance.*

## The Future of Sanctions: Toward a 21st Package and a More Robust Architecture

### Kaja Kallas and the doctrine of economic attrition

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs **Kaja Kallas** announced that a **21st sanctions package** was in preparation. Since all-out war began in **February 2022**, the **European Union** has banned the export to **Russia** of more than **48 billion euros** in goods and has banned Russian imports worth **91.2 billion euros**. These figures represent **54 percent** and **58 percent** respectively of 2021 trade volumes — a radical transformation of economic exchanges between the European bloc and **Russia**. Kallas's strategy is one of **economic attrition**: not a mortal blow, but progressive erosion that ultimately weighs on **Putin**'s military capabilities and domestic legitimacy.

The challenge of this attrition strategy is its duration. European Union economies have themselves borne the consequences of the break with **Russia** — particularly on energy, even if dependence on Russian gas has been substantially reduced since 2022. European populations, confronted with energy inflation and sluggish growth, are susceptible to impatience. That is **Putin**'s calculation: hold on long enough for Western resolve to erode. The shift to annual sanctions from **June 2026** is a direct answer to that calculation — declaring that **Europe** does not contemplate loosening its grip in the months ahead.

*Economic attrition is a strategy that demands a political patience that democracies struggle to maintain. Putin, for his part, has no electoral cycles. That is his only real advantage in this economic war. The durability of sanctions depends on the durability of Western political will — and that is where the real battle is being fought.*

## Conclusion: June 17 — A Deadline That Is Not Enough

### The end of the waiver: a first step in a strategy still being built

The expiration of **General License 134C** on **June 17, 2026** is a necessary measure, but an insufficient one. It ends a tolerance that allowed **Russia** to export at record levels during 90 days of American grace. It sends a signal to the market and to allies about **Washington**'s intentions. But it does not stop the **shadow fleet**, does not bring **India** back into the sanctions camp, does not close the new trade routes that **Moscow** has patiently built since 2022. The end of the waiver is a beginning, not a victory.

For this strategy to be effective, **Washington** will need to coordinate with its **G7** allies to strengthen enforcement of the price cap mechanism, engage seriously with **New Delhi** on its massive purchases of Russian oil, and actively support the European effort to designate shadow fleet entities. The **successive waivers** will have at least had the merit of revealing the limits of the current system. It is now up to the **Trump** administration and its European partners to build a more robust, more coherent sanctions architecture — one less susceptible to being routed around by markets that chose not to participate.

*The story of the General License 134C waivers will be, in the economic history books of this war, the perfect case study in half-measures sanctions. A pressure tool was created, then spent six months being self-diluted. Ukraine deserved better.*

## The International Response and the Months Ahead: What Could Change

### G7, NATO, and the concert of nations under pressure

The months following the waiver's expiration will be revealing of the coherence of the Western strategy. The **G7** has promised to strengthen sanctions on the Russian war economy. The **European Union** is preparing its **21st package**. **NATO**, gathered in **Ankara** for its June 2026 summit, discussed the implications of the economic war for collective security. But the G7's promises run up against the reality that the majority of Russian oil buyers are not part of that grouping. And 21 European sanctions packages, however well constructed, cannot compensate for the fact that **China**, **India**, and **Turkey** together represent a massive share of global oil demand.

The next decisive step will be **Washington**'s assessment of the post-Iran-war global energy situation. If Iranian oil effectively compensates for the partial withdrawal of Russian oil from accessible markets — as **Trump** seems to believe — then the room for tougher oil sanctions expands significantly. In that scenario, **June 17, 2026** would indeed mark a turning point. In the opposite scenario — if oil markets remain tight or if prices threaten to rise again — the pressure for a new waiver will be intense. And the cycle will start again.

*This narrative of the Russian oil waiver leaves me with an uncomfortable conviction: the economic war against Russia is being waged with the same ambivalence as the military war — with just enough conviction to start it, and not always enough to see it through. Ukraine, for its part, does not have the luxury of that ambivalence.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [The National News: Russia's oil windfall outlasts the US's wartime waiver — June 19, 2026](https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/energy/2026/06/19/russias-oil-windfall-outlasts-the-uss-wartime-waiver/)

- [Euronews: Bank of Russia flags risks of faster inflation — June 20, 2026](https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/06/20/fuel-crisis-and-war-costs-bank-of-russia-flags-risks-of-faster-inflation)

- [European Relations: The EU's latest Russia sanctions — June 20, 2026](https://europeanrelations.com/briefing/the-eus-latest-russia-sanctions-targeting-the-networks-behind-the-war/)

### Secondary sources

- [UNN: EU extends sanctions against Russia for 12 months for the first time — June 19, 2026](https://unn.ua/en/news/eu-extends-sanctions-against-russia-for-12-months-instead-of-six-for-the-first-time-media)

- [The Claw Street Journal: Iran ceasefire, China-NATO realignment — June 21, 2026](https://theclawstreetjournal.com/cyber-defense/2026/06/21/iran-ceasefire-china-nato-realignment.html)

- [Euronews: Fuel crisis and war costs — June 20, 2026](https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/06/20/fuel-crisis-and-war-costs-bank-of-russia-flags-risks-of-faster-inflation)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/recit-le-petrole-russe-coule-a-flots-pendant-que-washington-referme-le-robinet-d