Sanctions are clearly hurting the Russian economy, but US President Donald Trump is keeping his allies in the dark about whether he will support new measures, even though Washington is a party to a G7 agreement to coordinate steps against the Kremlin. This was stated to "Reuters" by the head of EU sanctions David O'Sullivan, News.bg reports.
Last week, the G7 countries - the United States, Japan, Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Italy - agreed to coordinate and strengthen sanctions against Moscow over its war in Ukraine. They plan to target countries that buy Russian oil and thus allow sanctions to be circumvented.
Although these countries were not named, India, China, Turkey and others have significantly increased their purchases of Russian crude oil since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The US has already imposed an additional 25% tariff on imports from India to pressure New Delhi to stop buying Russian oil at a discount. This brings the total punitive tariffs on Indian goods to 50%.
At the same time, Washington has not taken a similar move against other importers of Russian oil. It is also unclear whether he will support additional sanctions against the Kremlin.
"That is the big unknown in the situation," O'Sullivan said.
"There are signs that Trump is losing patience with President Putin, but whether that will lead to a decision on new sanctions remains unanswered."
He added that the United States needs to catch up with the other G7 countries on sanctions, having previously focused on the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
For example, the EU, Britain and Canada lowered the price ceiling for Russian oil to $47.60 a barrel from early September, down from $60 previously. The US, however, did not join the measure, a move that O'Sullivan described as "regrettable".
Trump has been pushing for tariffs on major importers of Russian oil, but O'Sullivan noted that many EU countries, as well as Canada and Britain, are "less convinced" of the effectiveness of this approach. They believe that pressure on ports, a shadowy fleet and refineries would be more effective.
Western powers want to take advantage of the slowdown in the Russian economy by limiting Moscow's oil and gas revenues.
O'Sullivan stressed that he would welcome stronger US pressure on EU members such as Slovakia and Hungary to end their purchases of oil and gas through pipelines - a sensitive issue for the bloc. Meanwhile, the EU plans to accelerate the phasing out of Russian LNG imports as part of the proposed 19th sanctions package.
He said the sanctions against Russia were working. "All the indicators in the Russian economy are flashing red", O'Sullivan noted.
"This shows how much pressure is on Russia. But the Kremlin is constantly finding ways to get around the sanctions, and we need to close those loopholes."