Ukraine’s top sanctions adviser is worried the mountain of restrictions piled against Russia’s oil and gas industry since 2022 is close to crumbling under the weight of soaring global oil prices.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, commissioner for sanctions policy in the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Semafor that the Trump administration’s decision last week to waive sanctions on some Russian oil tankers came as a surprise and wasn’t coordinated with G7 allies, as previous sanctions moves typically have been. Vlasiuk said he applauded the administration’s earlier sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, and has been impressed by the recent interdiction of shadow tankers near Venezuela. But following the Iran campaign, “all of a sudden, [the US] is just taking a decision which is quite contrary to what they previously did.”
New sanctions from the European Union, meanwhile, are being held up by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s outrage at the slow pace of repairs on the Druzhba oil pipeline. One potentially positive outcome of this situation for Ukraine, Vlasiuk said, is that it could strengthen Middle Eastern countries’ resolve to impose sanctions on trade in Russian military and “dual-use” equipment. But if oil prices get close to $150 per barrel, “nobody has said what the plan is. We’ll start hearing a lot of voices in favor of getting Russian oil back to the market.”