Trump's Special Envoy: Sanctions on Russian Oil Will Start Biting Soon

Following President Donald Trump's decision to shorten Russia's deadline to reach an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, retired Army General Keith Kellogg, special envoy to Russia and Ukraine, told the American media outlet Newsmax that sanctions on Moscow's oil "will start biting" if implemented, Focus reports.

"We haven't really pushed hard on the economic side of oil", Kellogg said. "This is an oil country. They export about 7 million barrels of oil a day, much of it through what we call the “dark fleet”.

In a statement in Scotland on Monday, Trump said he was cutting short his original 50-day deadline and giving Moscow just 10 to 12 days to reach an agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine before imposing secondary sanctions on oil exports.

The two biggest buyers of Russian oil are India and China, Kellogg added, with oil revenues used to finance the war in Ukraine and “to pay huge bonuses to the soldiers that [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is recruiting”.

The sanctions would impose a 100% tariff on buyers of Russian oil.

“If you start implementing this and the oligarchs start noticing it, like Russian sovereign assets are mostly held – although we are holding them – mostly in Belgium, he (Putin) is going to start getting internal pressure from his generals, he's going to get it from the oligarchs," Kellogg said of the Russian leader.

"And I think you're going to start seeing that“, Kellogg continued. “Because when you look at the sanctions and... if you talk to the Treasury Secretary, if you look at the sanctions, and Secretary [Scott] Bessent has said that if you look at them on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being low and 10 being high, they're probably at about a 6. But the enforcement is at about a 3. So if you start enforcing these sanctions, they're starting to work.“

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it had “taken note“ Trump's revised deadline and the threat of sanctions.

"We have taken into account President Trump's statement yesterday", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "The special military operation continues."

"We remain committed to the peace process to resolve the conflict around Ukraine and to ensuring our interests in the course of this settlement", Peskov added.