Trump's Sanctions on Russian Oil Mark First Strike Against Moscow — But Only After China and India Escape

When the Trump administration slapped sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil in October 2025, it marked the first time Washington had directly targeted Russian interests since Trump took office. The move came only after face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin collapsed, according to the House of Commons Library research briefing. The U.S. Treasury said the sanctions were "a direct result of Russia's lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine."

But the nine-month delay tells a more complicated story about Trump's approach to the Ukraine war — one that has alarmed European allies and exposed deepening fractures in the Western sanctions coalition that once stood united against Moscow.

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has not removed or relaxed any major Russia sanctions inherited from previous administrations. But it hasn't joined the UK, EU, and other allies in imposing new ones either. While London and Brussels have been tightening the screws — targeting Russia's shadow fleet, defense industry, and energy revenues — Washington sat on the sidelines for three quarters of the year. Trump repeatedly said he would impose "further sanctions" if Putin failed to negotiate in good faith. He just didn't do it until October, and only after diplomacy collapsed.

The real divergence, though, isn't about timing. It's about targets. Trump has fixated on secondary sanctions against countries still trading with Russia, particularly those buying Russian oil. He's called on the EU and G7 to slap tariffs of 50% to 100% on China and India for their purchases. Yet when it comes to actual enforcement, only India has been hit with additional tariffs — despite China being the world's largest importer of Russian oil, according to the Commons Library analysis.

This selective enforcement is hard to square with Trump's rhetoric. If the goal is to choke off Russia's energy revenues, why spare Beijing? The answer likely lies in the broader U.S.-China relationship, where trade wars, technology competition, and Taiwan tensions create a more complex calculus than Trump's public statements suggest. But the result is a sanctions regime that looks more performative than punitive.

Meanwhile, Europe has been doing the heavy lifting. The UK and EU have continued to tighten sanctions throughout 2025, targeting strategic sectors of Russia's economy. In May, the European Commission presented a roadmap to end all EU dependence on Russian energy by the end of 2027 — including a full phase-out of Russian oil, gas, and nuclear energy. The UK has frozen £28.7 billion in Russia-linked assets since 2022, according to the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation. The UK has sanctioned 3,280 individuals, entities, and ships under its Russia regime, while the EU has sanctioned over 2,700 individuals and entities plus 597 shadow fleet vessels.

The UK, EU, and U.S. have collectively denied Russia access to at least $450 billion since February 2022, including $285 billion in immobilized foreign currency reserves held within EU and G7 countries. Both the UK and EU have financed military equipment for Ukraine using proceeds from frozen Russian assets. These are not symbolic gestures — they represent a coordinated effort to degrade Russia's war-fighting capacity over the long term.

But coordination is fraying. In July 2025, the U.S. declined to support lowering the Oil Price Cap, a mechanism designed to limit Russian energy revenues funding the war. And in September, Trump announced the U.S. was "ready to do major sanctions on Russia" — but only when NATO members stop buying Russian oil. It's a curious condition, given that the EU is already on a path to zero Russian energy imports by 2027.

This is where the "Second Cold War" narrative, as described by analysts and cited in recent Wikipedia entries on the term, becomes relevant. The phrase has been used increasingly since 2016 to describe heightened geopolitical tensions, usually with the United States on one side and Russia and/or China on the other. But the current moment reveals something messier than a binary confrontation: a multipolar scramble where alliances are conditional, sanctions are selective, and peace negotiations are stalled.

China's role in this dynamic is particularly instructive. According to a recent Asia Society Policy Institute analysis, Beijing has adopted a stance of "pro-Russian neutrality" — aligned with Moscow even before the invasion and continuing to provide political and economic assistance while remaining relatively passive on the diplomatic front. China is unlikely to actively seek solutions, the analysis argues, because the continuation of the conflict serves its interests. At the same time, China maintains significant economic ties with Ukraine, creating a pragmatic relationship constrained by political and geostrategic distance.

The depth of Sino-Russian economic and trade ties makes it nearly impossible for Beijing to exert meaningful influence over Moscow's positions in the war, even if it wanted to. China's interests in maintaining its significant economic relations with Russia will likely trump any consideration for how to bring about an end to the Ukraine war, especially if a ceasefire harms China-Russia bilateral trade flows. Western attempts to pressure China into limiting its support for Moscow — through persuasion and sanctions — have so far been ineffective.

What we're witnessing is not the resurgence of a unified Western front against a monolithic adversary, but rather the slow unraveling of sanctions coordination as different capitals pursue divergent strategies. Trump's transactional approach to foreign policy — where tariffs are threats, allies are negotiating partners, and sanctions are bargaining chips — sits uncomfortably with the EU's more institutionalized commitment to supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity.

The question now is whether October's sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil represent a turning point or a one-off gesture. If Trump's willingness to impose "major sanctions" is contingent on NATO's behavior, and if China remains largely exempt despite being Russia's largest oil customer, then the sanctions regime is less a coordinated strategy than a collection of uncoordinated national policies.

For Ukraine, this matters enormously. Kyiv's ability to resist Russia's military campaign depends not just on weapons and financial support, but on the sustained economic pressure that makes the war unsustainable for Moscow. If the U.S. is only willing to act after diplomacy fails, and only willing to target certain countries for trading with Russia, then the West's leverage over Putin is weaker than it appears.

The irony is that Europe, not America, has become the more reliable partner for Ukraine in 2025. The UK and EU have provided security guarantees, frozen tens of billions in assets, and charted a path to energy independence from Russia. Meanwhile, Washington has spent nine months talking about sanctions before finally imposing them — and even then, only after a summit collapsed.

As the war grinds on with no end in sight, the real question is whether the West can rebuild the coordination that made sanctions effective in 2022 and 2023. If Trump continues to pursue a go-it-alone approach, and if China remains insulated from meaningful consequences for supporting Russia, then the sanctions regime will become less about changing Moscow's behavior and more about managing the appearance of Western unity. And that's a strategy Putin can easily outlast.