Trump Just Sanctioned Russia’s Biggest Oil Companies. Don’t Pop the Champagne Yet.

Don't blink, you'll forget what happened for 11 years

(Children of the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, after another Russian attack. Photo by Chris Sampson, Kyiv, June 2025)

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I’ve filmed the aftermath of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine for nearly four years now. The hospitals with shattered windows and blood-streaked corridors. The apartment buildings split open like dollhouses, stuffed animals visible in the rubble where children used to sleep. The power substations reduced to smoking metal after another night of cruise missiles. Every single one of those strikes costs money—missiles that cost millions, drones by the thousands, artillery shells by the hundreds of thousands. And every ruble funding that machinery of death flows from the same source: Russian oil.

This isn’t abstract geopolitics. It’s math. Russia’s war machine runs on oil revenue. Cut the oil money, and you cut the war. It’s that simple, and it’s that urgent.

Ukraine understands this better than anyone. While Washington debates sanctions policy, Ukrainian forces have been systematically striking Russian oil infrastructure—refineries, storage facilities, terminals—taking the fight directly to the source of Russia’s war funding. They’ve hit targets deep inside Russia, degrading production capacity and forcing Moscow to divert resources to defense. Ukraine isn’t waiting for permission to choke off the oil money. They’re doing it themselves, one strike at a time.

Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dropped sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil—Russia’s two biggest oil companies—plus thirty-four of their subsidiaries. The press release hit all the right rhetorical notes: “stop the killing,” “immediate ceasefire,” “degrade the Kremlin’s war machine.” It sounded righteous, moral, decisive. And in a sense, it was. These are not meaningless gestures; Ukraine’s supporters have been begging for measures like this since the first missiles fell on Mykolaiv and Kharkiv in 2022.

So yes—it matters. It’s real. It deserves recognition. But if you’ve been watching sanctions politics for the past decade, you already know there’s a canyon between what Donald Trump announces and what he actually enforces. That space—between the headline and the implementation—is where Russia has learned to operate. It’s where influence campaigns, soft lobbying, and quiet deals take root. And for anyone who remembers how Moscow has spent years trying to dismantle sanctions through covert and overt pressure, the appropriate first reaction to yesterday’s news isn’t applause. It’s suspicion.

II. Obama’s Foundation — The Sanctions Architecture

To understand what’s happening now, you have to go back to where it began. Between 2014 and 2016, as Russia seized Crimea and launched its war in the Donbas, Barack Obama’s team quietly built the entire U.S. sanctions framework that still underpins Washington’s response to Moscow today. What emerged from those years wasn’t just a foreign policy—it was an institutional machine designed to make Russian aggression economically unsustainable. This isn’t about political loyalty or nostalgia; it’s simply the record. I’ll admit, I once assumed nothing meaningful had been done. But since living in Ukraine and studying these actions rigorously, I’ve come to see how deliberate—and how foundational—those early sanctions really were.

In those three years, the United States designated roughly three hundred and seventy individuals and entities tied to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Ninety-five in 2014, one hundred thirty-two in 2015, and one hundred forty-three in 2016. The numbers are more than data points—they chart an evolving strategy. These weren’t random oligarchs plucked from Forbes lists. The sanctions went after networks: banks, energy firms, shell companies, arms suppliers, and front operations laundering profits from Crimea’s occupation. They squeezed the arteries of Putin’s economy.

Each order came with teeth because it had a legal backbone. Obama didn’t wake up one morning and “invent” sanctions. He used powers Congress had already delegated through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the National Emergencies Act (NEA). Under IEEPA, the president can regulate transactions and freeze property when a foreign threat endangers national security. Under the NEA, he can declare a national emergency and renew it annually. Those authorities are what make Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) the enforcement arm of economic warfare.

So when Obama signed Executive Order 13660 on March 6, 2014, he was pulling a legal lever, not a political stunt. It declared that Russia’s actions in Ukraine posed an “extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security, triggering emergency powers that allowed Washington to freeze assets and block entry to anyone destabilizing Ukraine. Within days came Executive Orders 13661 and 13662, expanding the scope to Russian government officials and entire economic sectors like finance, energy, and defense. Finally, Executive Order 13685 in December 2014 sealed Crimea off entirely, banning all U.S. trade and investment in the region.

These four orders, issued between March and December of 2014, became the permanent scaffolding for every Russia sanctions policy that followed—under Trump, under Biden, and likely under whoever comes next. Every new sanction still cites the “national emergency declared in Executive Order 13660.” That’s the architecture. That’s the system. And it works only as well as the person sitting behind the desk chooses to use it.

III. Trump’s Inheritance — The Sanctions That Survived Him

When Trump took office in 2017, he inherited this machine in perfect working order. He also inherited the political constraints that made it nearly impossible to dismantle—thanks to bipartisan outrage over Russia’s election interference. But instead of expanding or enforcing it, his administration coasted.

Between 2017 and 2021, Trump’s Treasury added only about 131 new Ukraine-related designations—barely a third of Obama’s pace. The numbers tell the story of neglect: twenty-five designations in 2017, thirty-five in 2018, thirty in 2019, twenty-five in 2020, sixteen in 2021. The machine kept running, but Trump wasn’t steering it. Congress was.

From the start, he treated sanctions as obstacles to his personal diplomacy. In August 2017, when Congress passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) by overwhelming bipartisan margins—98–2 in the Senate and 419–3 in the House—Trump signed it but called it “seriously flawed” and complained it “encroached on executive authority.” His administration immediately began slow-walking implementation.

Deadlines came and went. When Treasury was ordered to produce a list of oligarchs close to Putin, it simply copied the Forbes billionaires list—ninety-six names, no penalties. When sanctions were due against Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors, the State Department argued that “the threat of sanctions” was enough. Even after the Kremlin used a nerve agent to poison Sergei Skripal in the U.K., Trump personally overruled Nikki Haley’s announcement of new sanctions, saying he wanted to “leave room for diplomacy.”

The pattern held through 2020. Trump granted waivers to Turkey after it bought Russian S-400 missiles, violating CAATSA outright. He delayed sanctions on Nord Stream 2 for months, treating them as bargaining chips with Germany. By the time Congress forced him to act in December 2020, the pipeline was nearly complete. When he finally sanctioned one ship—the Fortuna—it was too little, too late.

The conclusion: Trump didn’t initiate sanctions; he resisted them. And every time Congress or his own officials pushed him to act, he looked for ways to dilute, delay, or trade them away.

IV. The Legal Engine — How Sanctions Actually Work

Behind all this political theater lies a system of laws and mechanisms most Americans never see. A sanction is not a speech—it’s a financial command. Once the president declares a national emergency under IEEPA, the Treasury Department gains authority to freeze property, block transactions, and forbid American entities from dealing with designated persons. Banks must report frozen assets to OFAC; violators face criminal penalties. It’s not symbolic. It’s legally binding.

Visa bans work under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to deny entry to foreign nationals whose presence is deemed detrimental to U.S. interests. That’s why oligarchs suddenly can’t land in Miami or move their yachts to Florida. It’s law, not politics.

So when Trump—or now, Bessent—announces sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, they’re activating machinery that traces straight back to Obama’s 2014 orders. Without those legal foundations, there is no authority to freeze assets, ban trade, or block access to the U.S. financial system. Every new sanction, even in 2025, is an echo of those four signatures from 2014.

This legal framework matters because it explains why yesterday’s sanctions have real teeth—if enforced. Rosneft and Lukoil aren’t just names on a list. They’re now radioactive to any entity that wants to do business in or with the United States. Every transaction, every dollar, every barrel of oil that moves through their systems puts trading partners at risk of secondary sanctions. That’s economic pressure that can actually change behavior—if the administration follows through.

V. The New Announcement — What It Really Means

That’s what makes yesterday’s sanctions significant. Targeting Rosneft and Lukoil isn’t a minor gesture. These are titans of the Russian economy—Rosneft a vertically integrated oil empire controlling exploration, refining, and export; Lukoil a global trader moving crude across continents. Together, they represent the financial backbone of Putin’s war machine. Every barrel they sell funds another missile, another drone, another night of terror against Ukrainian cities.

Full blocking sanctions mean that any company or bank doing business with them must now choose: access to the U.S. financial system or access to Russian oil. Not both. That choice creates real pressure. It forces global companies, banks, and traders to cut ties with Russia’s oil giants or lose access to American markets. It shrinks the pool of buyers and transportation options. It reduces Russia’s ability to move oil at market prices.

This is the kind of economic warfare Ukraine needs. While Ukrainian forces strike refineries and storage facilities inside Russia—systematically degrading the physical infrastructure of Russia’s oil industry—these sanctions can strangle the financial side. Together, they form a pincer movement: destroy the production capacity while cutting off the revenue streams. It’s exactly the strategy that can make this war unsustainable for Moscow.

But the context muddies the meaning. Bessent’s statement used careful phrasing about an “immediate ceasefire” and “renewed peace talks.” Trump’s rhetoric about “ending the war” has always hinged on one concept: Ukraine gives up territory, Russia keeps what it took, and everyone pretends that’s peace. If these sanctions are meant to push Kyiv toward that outcome, they aren’t support—they’re coercion wrapped in moral language.

Even if this move hurts Moscow, history warns us to stay wary. Trump’s record shows that sanctions for him are transactional tools. He delays, waives, or trades them away when it suits him. If Moscow offers him a “historic deal,” a summit, or energy concessions that play to his ego, how long do you think these sanctions will last?

VI. Russia’s Counteroffensive — The War Against Sanctions

To predict what happens next, you have to understand how far Russia will go to kill sanctions. For the Kremlin, sanctions aren’t just policy—they’re existential. Every restriction slices into the networks that keep Putin’s elites wealthy and loyal. So Russia fights back, not with tanks, but with infiltration.

Remember the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort sat down with a group of Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. What they actually got was a pitch to repeal the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 sanctions law targeting Russian human-rights abusers. The Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, accompanied by lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, spent the meeting arguing against those sanctions. Putin later echoed her exact talking points at the Helsinki summit with Trump.

Or take Maria Butina, the Russian operative who spent years embedding herself in conservative political circles through the NRA. Her mission was simple: build a back channel to influence Republican politicians toward “better U.S.-Russia relations”—code for lifting sanctions. A Senate investigation later found the NRA acted as a “foreign asset” during that period, facilitating Butina’s access to senior figures. She eventually pled guilty to conspiracy to act as a foreign agent, but the damage was done. Russia had successfully probed America’s political immune system.

These aren’t conspiracy theories. They’re documented facts. Russia runs long campaigns to dismantle sanctions, infiltrating politics, lobbying allies, and cultivating relationships with decision-makers. It’s not about ideology—it’s about cash flow. Russia needs its oil revenue flowing freely, and it will use every tool—from honey traps to campaign contributions to backroom deals—to make that happen.

The pattern is unmistakable: Russia views sanctions as a battlefield, and they fight on that battlefield with the same resources and persistence they bring to conventional warfare. They identify pressure points, exploit personal ambitions, and offer deals that sound reasonable until you realize they’re designed to slowly unravel the entire sanctions architecture.

VII. The Pattern — Trump’s Weak Spot

This is where the pattern becomes impossible to ignore. Russia’s strategy has always been persistence; Trump’s weakness has always been transaction. They offer him flattery, deals, and “historic peace” announcements. He gives them what they want—relief, delay, ambiguity.

So here’s the likely path: Trump announces bold sanctions, claims victory, takes the headlines, and then months later uses those same sanctions as leverage for a “peace deal” that leaves Russia occupying Ukrainian territory. He’ll call it diplomacy. His aides will call it pragmatism. But in reality, it will be the same betrayal pattern we’ve seen before.

Russia knows how to play this game. They’ll wait. They’ll offer Trump a summit in Moscow or Mar-a-Lago, promise energy deals that make him look like a dealmaker, dangle the prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize. They’ll frame sanctions relief as the “price of peace” and bet that Trump values the headlines more than the enforcement.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: that bet has paid off before. Trump’s first term showed exactly how vulnerable he is to this approach. Every time Russia offered him something that served his ego or his political interests, he found ways to undermine, delay, or trade away sanctions that Congress fought to impose.

That’s why Ukraine’s supporters must play this carefully. Take the win publicly. Praise the move loudly enough that it becomes politically costly for Trump to reverse it. Make these sanctions a symbol of American resolve, a commitment that carries bipartisan weight. The more public support these sanctions generate, the harder it becomes for Trump to quietly trade them away in some backroom deal with Putin.

Then watch implementation obsessively. Sanctions are only real when enforced. The moment Treasury starts issuing quiet waivers or exemptions, call it out. The moment enforcement gets lax or secondary sanctions aren’t pursued against companies still doing business with Rosneft and Lukoil, sound the alarm. Vigilance isn’t pessimism—it’s the only thing that keeps these measures from becoming another headline that fades into irrelevance.

VIII. What Ukraine Needs — The Full Strategy

Here’s what actually works: Ukraine has already shown the way. They’re not waiting for sanctions to slowly squeeze Russia’s economy. They’re taking the fight directly to Russian oil infrastructure, striking refineries and storage facilities, forcing Russia to choose between defending its energy sector and funding its war machine. Every successful strike on a Russian refinery is a strike against Russia’s ability to fund the missiles that hit Ukrainian cities.

Sanctions should complement and amplify this strategy. While Ukraine degrades Russia’s production capacity, sanctions should strangle the revenue streams. Together, they create a comprehensive approach: make it harder for Russia to produce oil, and harder to sell what they do produce. That’s the pincer movement that can actually end this war.

But it requires follow-through. It requires secondary sanctions against any entity still doing business with Russian oil giants. It requires closing loopholes, hunting down shadow tankers, and going after the financial networks that help Russia evade restrictions. It requires making the choice binary for every company and bank: you can have access to Russian oil or access to Western markets, but you cannot have both.

This is where the United States and Europe need to coordinate. Sanctions only work when they’re comprehensive and enforced by all major economies. If Europe maintains restrictions while the U.S. quietly eases them, or vice versa, Russia will simply redirect its oil flows and find willing buyers. Putin has spent years building alternative payment systems, cultivating relationships with China and India, and developing workarounds for Western sanctions. The only way to defeat that is unified, relentless enforcement.

Ukraine can’t win this alone. They can strike refineries, disrupt logistics, and force Russia to spend billions defending its energy infrastructure. But they can’t cut Russia off from global oil markets—that takes coordinated Western action. Yesterday’s sanctions could be the beginning of that action, or they could be another false start that Russia learns to work around.

IX. The Closing — Memory and Vigilance

Let’s remember what we’ve already seen. Russia doesn’t accept sanctions—it fights them. It infiltrates, lobbies, bribes, and manipulates until the pressure breaks. Trump has shown, time and again, that he’s willing to help them loosen the screws if it benefits him politically or personally.

So yes, acknowledge yesterday’s action. It’s serious. It hits real targets. But don’t confuse one strong move with a lasting strategy. Obama built the sanctions machine. Congress kept it alive. Trump fought it. Russia has been trying to dismantle it ever since.

Now, with Trump back in power and Russia still waging war, the question isn’t whether sanctions exist—it’s whether they survive him. Will these sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil still be enforced six months from now? Will Treasury pursue secondary sanctions against companies still trading with them? Will Trump resist the inevitable Russian offers to trade sanctions relief for a “peace deal” that legitimizes territorial theft?

The answers to those questions will determine whether yesterday’s announcement was genuine economic warfare or just another transaction waiting to happen. For Ukraine, for the children still sleeping in cities Russia targets every night, for the hospitals that will be hit and the power plants that will be struck—this isn’t about politics. It’s about whether the West finally chokes off the money funding their destruction.

Whatever Trump gives with one hand, watch what he does with the other. Because if four years of filming Russia’s war has taught me anything, it’s this: Hope is important, but vigilance keeps people alive. Russia’s war machine runs on oil money. Cut that money, and you cut the war. But only if the cuts are real, sustained, and enforced without mercy.

Don’t pop the champagne yet. Watch. Verify. Hold them accountable. That’s how sanctions work—and that’s how Ukraine survives.