Donald Trump’s stated mission to broker peace in Ukraine could come down to this simple question: can the US president convince the world to stop buying Russia’s fossil fuels?Last week, Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in an effort to damage Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.Tom Keatinge, the founding director of the Centre for Finance and Security (CFS) at the defence thinktank Rusi, said: “The US has been more effective in 24 hours than the EU has been in the last six months.Trump is willing to say what many others are too timid or too diplomatic to say out loud.For the longest time people have been calling for Trump to pull out the sanctions hammer.It could be very significant.

”The sanctions mean companies buying Russian oil risk losing access to the dollar-based financial system.This could have particularly large consequences for India and China, which have emerged as the largest importers of Russian oil and gas since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three and a half years ago.The impact has been swift.Within hours, the sanctions had triggered a 6% rise in the global oil price and reports were emerging of an immediate pause of Russian oil deliveries to the biggest refineries in India, Moscow’s biggest crude customer, and to China’s biggest state-owned oil companies.Luke Wickenden, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), said a significant decline in Asia’s fossil fuel imports would be “devastating” for the Kremlin’s export revenues.

“Between January and September this year, 86% of Russia’s crude oil exports – including pipeline deliveries – went to China and India.If Moscow lost access to these markets, it could forfeit approximately $7.4bn in monthly revenue, translating to roughly $3.6bn in tax receipts per month flowing directly into the Kremlin’s war chest,” Wickenden said.“There is some hope, however.

In September, Russian crude imports by India’s state-owned refineries dropped to their lowest levels since May 2022, falling by 38% month on month.If India alone were to cut its imports of Russian crude, the Kremlin could lose roughly $1.6bn in monthly tax revenues.”Russia’s monthly fossil fuel export revenues slipped by 4% last month to the lowest since the full-scale invasion and are now half of what they were in September 2022.But while revenues are significantly lower than they were, they remain propped up by purchases of oil and gas from buyers in Asia and eastern Europe and shipments of seaborne liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the EU.

Russia is also understood to export millions of tonnes of crude via so-called “shadow tankers”, a fleet of ageing vessels used to circumvent western sanctions.Trump’s latest move to starve Putin’s war machine of fossil fuel revenues came after he received a tepid response to his demands for India and China to cut their Russian energy imports or face tougher trade terms as a consequence.China denounced the Trump administration’s “unilateral bullying” and “economic coercion” over what it described as its “legitimate” oil purchases from Russia and vowed to take “firm countermeasures” if its national interests were harmed.Trump said India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, had assured him during a phone call this week that Delhi was “not going to buy much oil from Russia” as he too “wants to see the war end with Russia-Ukraine”.But while Modi has acknowledged the call, on which Trump wished the prime minister a happy Diwali, he has not publicly confirmed plans to limit India’s crude imports from Russia.

For Trump, the mission to break Russia’s energy dominance has twin benefits, according to Keatinge,“There is an opportunity here to bring peace to Ukraine and profit to the US,” he said,The US has become Europe’s biggest supplier of LNG since the war in Ukraine caused pipeline imports of Russian gas to run dry and seaborne shipments of gas to slow,It accounted for more than 55% of the EU’s LNG imports last year, from negligible volumes in 2019,Trump can expect US gas exports to Europe to increase after the EU agreed last week to phase out all imports of Russian gas, including LNG, by the beginning of 2027.

Although Europe’s reliance on Russian energy has slumped, the continent is still funding the Kremlin through purchases of Russian oil and gas, which Keatinge said was “a disgraceful stain” on the EU.The EU remains the largest buyer of Russian LNG, according to data from Crea, and has bought half of Russia’s total LNG exports, followed by China (22%) and Japan (18%).The bloc is also the largest buyer of pipeline gas, buying 35% of Russia’s pipeline gas, followed by China (30%) and Turkey (29%).Hungary and Slovakia were the EU’s largest importers of Russian gas last month, buying €393m- and €207m-worth of Russian fossil fuels respectively.France, Belgium and the Netherlands having continued to import Russian gas, too.

France was the EU’s third largest buyer of Russian gas last year, importing €153m of Russian fossil fuels, all in the form of LNG, some of which was subsequently delivered to Germany.Belgium was the fourth biggest importer, importing €92m of Russian LNG, while the Netherlands bought €62m of LNG.Keatinge said: “The EU has been quick to say they’re bringing forward the day they stop to January 2027, but how many Ukrainians will die before then? Some European countries were able to find a way to go without Russian imports almost immediately – this should have come three years ago.We should hold India and China to account, of course, but we should look at our own, too.”The long-term impact of Trump’s war on Russia’s fossil fuel revenues, and whether it can bring peace to Europe and profit to the US, remains to be seen.

Industry observers have warned that much will depend on how strictly the sanctions are enforced and how those still reliant on Russia’s fossil fuels respond.In the meantime, Keatinge is optimistic.“Never bet against Trump,” he said.