The administration of US President Donald Trump has renewed sanctions restrictions on Russian oil shipments by sea without extending the temporary exemption.
This is the US Treasury Department’s General Licence 134b, which allowed certain countries, in particular India, to temporarily continue buying Russian oil if the cargoes were loaded before the sanctions deadlines came into effect.
The exemption was first introduced in March and extended again in April. Washington explained this as “a desire to avoid a new energy crisis amid fighting in the Middle East and threats to key sea routes for oil supplies.”
However, critics in the US and Ukraine believed that the policy effectively enabled Moscow to continue to make billions of dollars in profits from oil exports during the war against Ukraine.
On 15 May, Democratic Senators Jeanne Shagin and Elizabeth Warren urged the administration not to extend the exemption. In a joint statement, they stressed that “there is no evidence that easing sanctions helped lower fuel prices for Americans, while at the same time Russia continued to receive billions of dollars in oil revenues.”
The chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Brian Mast, also supported the continuation of sanctions pressure on Moscow, but cautioned that “restrictions should not harm US allies more than Russia itself.”
Earlier, on 13 March, the US Treasury Department eased restrictions on the sale of Russian oil and oil products that had already been loaded onto ships to lower prices following Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US-Israeli operation. The deferral expired on 11 April.
The agency did not respond to Politico’s question about the expiration, but referred to a March statement by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calling the easing a “short-term measure.” Democrats in Congress had previously criticised the delay, saying the easing allowed Russia and its enablers to earn more than four billion dollars in additional revenue. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted that according to the department’s analysis, Russia should have received no more than two billion dollars during the time the sanctions were lifted.
For the first time in five years, Russia bought 2.5 million barrels of crude oil. Another 27 thousand tonnes of Russian oil products arrived in South Korea (it has not bought oil from Russia since 2022), notes Radio Liberty’s project “Present Time”.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump said that US sanctions against Russian oil will be renewed after the campaign against Iran is completed.
On 28 February, the US launched a joint military operation with Israel against Iran. Iran responded by blocking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 per cent of the world’s offshore oil supplies pass, causing fuel prices to rise.
One of the main beneficiaries of this has been Russia, Financial Times analysts reported. Prices for Russian Urals crude reached a 13-year high at the beginning of April. Experts forecast that additional oil and gas revenues in April may reach or even exceed one trillion rubles.