Trump goes there: Lukoil and Rosneft account for half of Russia's oil exports. Now both are under U.S. sanctions.

[Passages]

3:53 pm, October 23, 2025

A long-awaited first
The U.S. and the European Union have jointly imposed sanctions targeting Russia’s two largest oil companies — the first such move since Donald Trump returned to the White House. On Wednesday, the U.S. president changed tack from previous days and opted to take a harder line with Moscow, canceling a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin in Budapest and approving sanctions Washington had long threatened to enact.

The new restrictions on Lukoil and Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil exporters, apply not only to the parent companies but also to 34 of their subsidiaries. U.S. secondary sanctions now threaten any trading partners doing business with these entities, unless they wind down operations within a month. This secondary sanctions threat may pose an even greater risk to Russia than the blacklisting of the companies themselves.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged America’s partners to join in the sanctions to increase their effectiveness, and the E.U. responded swiftly. Within hours of the U.S. announcement, Lukoil and Rosneft were included in Brussels’s 19th sanctions package against Russia. The E.U. promised to tighten restrictions on the state-owned Rosneft, while Lukoil was blacklisted along with its Dubai-based trading arm, Litasco Middle East DMCC, which European officials say manages many of the tankers in the “shadow fleet” of ships illegally transporting sanctioned Russian oil.

SNIP*
Does the U.S. really have that much leverage over Beijing and New Delhi?
Judging by initial reactions, they do. The U.S. sanctions are “sending shockwaves deep into the heart of China’s oil industry,” Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing its industry sources. Russia currently supplies up to 20 percent of China’s crude oil imports, of which Lukoil and Rosneft account for about a quarter. Many state-owned and private enterprises rely on processing this crude, and they are integrated into the global financial system.

https://meduza.io/en/cards/trump-goes-there