The upswing in global oil prices could drain political momentum for enforcing stronger sanctions against Russia.
Russia’s oil and gas revenue is down by 27% compared to pre-2022 levels, thanks to US and European sanctions and overall low oil prices. But the Kremlin could be a key winner, at least temporarily, from turmoil in the Middle East, Luke Wickenden, sanctions analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Semafor. If major disruptions to physical oil supply materialize over the coming days, it will erode the leverage that countries such as China and India have used to extract steep discounts from Russia, Wickenden said. Western governments may also be less inclined to enforce existing sanctions or apply new ones in a highly-constrained energy market — although Belgium seized a Russian shadow fleet tanker as recently as Saturday, and the new sanctions bill in the US Senate was already bogged down before the Iran situation began.
In the meantime, Senate Democrats are still pushing for a separate bill to target Russia’s shadow fleet. “We would hope that Western sanctions policy remains anchored in Russia’s geopolitical aggression rather than short-term oil price movements,” Svitlana Romanko, director of the Ukrainian advocacy group Razom We Stand, told Semafor.