What happens if Putin rejects ceasefire? Trump’s options are limited

The US president could go after Russia’s oil ‘ghost fleet’ — but that may come at a high price for American consumers.

President Trump has threatened to put economic pressure on Russia if it rejects a ceasefire in Ukraine.

“I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia,” he said this week. “I don’t want to do that because I want to get peace. In a financial sense ... we could do things very bad for Russia. It would be devastating.”

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the United States worked with G7 countries to impose sanctions that denied Russian financial institutions access to international capital markets.

Russian-produced energy faced price ceilings designed to stop profits being spent on the war, while oligarchs’ yachts and villas were sold and bank accounts frozen, with most of the money now held in Europe. However, Moscow has weathered these difficulties while continuing to fund the conflict and keep its domestic economy afloat. So what leverage does Trump have?

“There aren’t really many arrows left to hit Russia with in terms of sanctions,” said Alexander Kolyandr, a financial analyst and senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis (Cepa).

The one area where sanctions could still harm Russia was energy, he said, but that could come at a high price for American consumers. Moscow has used a “ghost fleet” of hundreds of tankers registered to obscure owners to evade existing sanctions on its oil exports. Ukraine has led calls to tackle the abuse with tougher penalties.

“If the Americans wreck the sale of Russian oil, it would be close to removing about 10 per cent of the oil from the global market,” Kolyandr said. “That would mean higher prices at the gas pump to American consumers.

“The same would be true if the Americans imposed secondary sanctions on those still importing Russian oil, like India and China. Yes, it would be harmful for the Russian economy but even more so for the global oil market - and therefore American voters.”

For an administration committed to keeping the cost of living low, this could be a disastrous move.

For its part, Russia has other ideas. It is asking its companies to suggest which sanctions Moscow should seek to have lifted ahead of proposed talks with Washington.

Asked if the White House’s threat of new sanctions on Moscow was merely sabre-rattling, Kolyandr said: “You can call it sabre-rattling if you like. You can also call it bullshit.”

The Times