“It’s a complex formula”: an expert explained whether Russia will profit from oil due to the lifting of sanctions

Political strategist Mikhail Sheitelman explained that, apparently, Russia will not earn much from the easing of U.S. sanctions, while Ukraine is also preventing the aggressor from freely exporting its oil.

He spoke about this on his blog.

According to the expert, as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack at the port of Primorsk, fuel storage tanks caught fire — not crude oil, but expensive refined petroleum products. The smoke from the tanks, he emphasized, stretched for kilometers — not a sight for the faint-hearted.

“Well, of course, these are very encouraging news. You see, Trump is trying to lower oil prices, while we are trying to raise them. In other words, we are not allowing Russians to benefit from the fact that global oil prices have risen. And in general, hardly anyone is signing new contracts with them anyway,” Mikhail Sheitelman stressed.

He also noted that the U.S. Treasury has officially calculated how much Russians could earn from this temporary lifting of sanctions. As Bessent stated, the expert continued, Russians would earn about $2 billion — but that is roughly Russia’s budget for just one day.

“He says that allowing the sale of this oil lowered its global price by several dollars, and Russia will lose more than it gains from these sales. So, he says, we’re not fools either. For some reason, Bessent is the only person in the U.S. administration I completely trust. He knows the numbers. He knows what he’s talking about. It’s a kind of complex formula — as a mathematician would say: optimization. We need to somehow regulate the price of oil. We’ll ‘give’ Russia $2 billion, but they’ll lose $5 billion elsewhere. Something like that,” Mikhail Sheitelman concluded.

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