Standing in front of the White House complex on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivered news that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been waiting for: “We are going to, either announce after the close this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning, a substantial pickup in Russia sanctions.”
The formal announcement came hours later: Lukoil and Rosneft, Russia’s two largest oil companies, as well as dozens of subsidiary companies, are now barred from using the U.S.-led financial system. More importantly, third-party entities, including importers, exporters, financial institutions or anybody else doing business with these Russian outfits, risk facing U.S. sanctions themselves. President Donald Trump slapped Moscow with additional penalties once it became clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t cooperate with the White House’s push to end the war in Ukraine.
The days Russia could earn about $1 billion a day from oil exports are gone for the time being.
The purpose of the administration’s latest sanctions play is straightforward: drain Russia’s coffers, scare buyers of Russian oil such as China and India to look for other sources and, the White House hopes, compel Putin to settle a war that will enter its fifth year next February. Trump, frankly, is tired of the conflict and even more tired of Putin’s stonewalling of any diplomatic effort that doesn’t result in Moscow attaining its maximalist objectives.
Whether this tighter squeeze on the Russian economy will deliver the result Trump seeks is another question.
Financially speaking, the U.S. sanctions will obviously have an effect. Indeed, even before these sanctions were rolled out yesterday, Russia’s economy has slowed considerably this year, after growing an estimated 4.3 percent in 2024 — faster than many other Western economies.
Due in large part to lower oil prices — the price of Brent Crude has declined nearly 20 percent from its peak in January — and fears of global supply outpacing demand, the days Russia could earn about $1 billion a day from oil exports are gone for the time being. Instead, the Russians will be lucky if they clear $100 billion for the entire year. That would be far short of the $135 billion generated last year and the lowest earnings since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
In addition to the oil price slump, Putin’s war policy is starting to create problems for Russia’s broader economic policy. The Kremlin, for instance, is paying extremely lucrative sums to entice Russian men to join the war effort in Ukraine. As a recruiting measure, the strategy is successful. Around 30,000 recruits are joining the Russian army every month, which helps Putin sustain very high losses on the battlefield while avoiding the nationwide mobilization that would be politically unpopular among the Russian public (the last time Putin ordered a partial mobilization, 200,000 young Russian men left the country in just one week).
But this isn’t financially sustainable over the long term, particularly if the global oil price stays where it is (no sure thing, of course) or even dips lower. Plus, the flood of cash for enlistments has pushed up inflation to nearly 10 percent, hitting consumers in their wallets.
Yet, the success or failure of sanctions shouldn’t be measured on a balance sheet. Lost business, higher inflation and lower returns don’t mean a lot if the policy you’re seeking to change stays the same. Ultimately, sanctions are designed to achieve a policy objective. In this case, the White House’s objective is coercing Putin into reassessing his position on the war and pressuring him to sign the immediate ceasefire the Trump administration is demanding.
Russia’s demands are the same today as they were last year.
Obviously, it’s too early to issue a verdict one way or the other. But Putin’s conduct since the first missiles were fired more than four years ago doesn’t augur much confidence. Less than twelve hours after the U.S. government announced the new sanctions, the Russian Foreign Ministry repeated the same talking point it has been touting for years: Moscow’s goals in Ukraine “remain unchanged.”
Russia’s demands are the same today as they were last year: no NATO membership for Ukraine; a Ukrainian military pullout from the entire Donbas region before any ceasefire; caps and limitations on the size of the Ukrainian army; and Ukraine for all intents and purposes should remain in the Russian sphere of influence. Whereas Trump and Zelenskyy want an immediate end to the shooting as a step toward more comprehensive peace talks, Putin refuses to end the fighting and has countered with a slow-moving, migraine-inducing negotiation over the “root causes” of the war, which in Russia’s mind includes nullifying NATO’s eastward expansion closer to Russian borders. Don’t be surprised if U.S. sanctions fail to bring Putin around on this point. History has demonstrated time and time again that sanctions in general don’t produce big transformations in state behavior. This is particularly the case if the state on the receiving end of the sanctions believes the demands being placed on it are too onerous or that catering to them will compromise its own national security. Others may resist because they don’t believe providing the necessary concessions will result in the lifting of those financial restrictions. Saddam Hussein, for instance, chose to undergo severe economic deprivation rather than cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un would rather deal with U.N. sanctions than part with his nuclear deterrent. And Iran would rather do the same to preserve its uranium enrichment program. Putin, likewise, is so far signaling a preference to keep the war going, sanctions or no sanctions. Whatever the case, what we can say for sure is that Trump’s latest move illustrates yet again the topsy-turvy nature of his policy on Ukraine. It was only two months ago when Trump met with Putin in Alaska, red carpet and all, to explore whether leader-to-leader diplomacy was viable. Then, after threatening to send Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, Trump spoke again with Putin, this time by phone. Afterward, he claimed progress, anticipating yet another summit. Now, after Putin rejected Trump’s demands for an immediate ceasefire, Trump is switching tact again by canceling the supposed Budapest summit, escalating the economic pressure and reportedly allowing Ukraine to use long-range Western missiles deeper into Russian territory. The only constant in all of this is that the war will go on.
Daniel R. DePetris
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune. 
