Putin emerges as the real winner in Trump’s Iran war, as it restores Russian oil to the global map

(SeaPRwire) –   The ongoing conflict in Iran has sent global oil prices soaring, and Russian President Vladimir Putin could not be more pleased.

The conflict has taken one-fifth of the world’s total oil supply off the market, driving up premiums for all remaining available supplies, including Russian crude barrels.

Earlier this month, the U.S. issued a 30-day waiver that permits countries to purchase Russian oil already at sea without risk of U.S. sanctions. Washington has steadily enforced these sanctions on Russia and any entities that buy oil from Russia’s largest producers since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the “deliberately short-term measure will not deliver significant financial benefit to the Russian government.” But after years of steep discounts and covert strategies to sell oil abroad, the easing of Russian sanctions has already given Putin and other Russian officials new confidence, as well as hope that this U.S. leniency will last beyond its April 11 expiration date.

Before the Iran conflict broke out, the Urals oil benchmark, which prices most Russian crude, sat at around $57 per barrel, a major discount to Brent crude which traded at $71 per barrel before the conflict. By Monday, Urals was trading near parity with Brent at roughly $100 a barrel, even after pulling back by midday.

To be clear, Brent crude fell sharply on Monday, after President Donald Trump announced he would postpone attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure while his officials negotiate with Iran to end the war. Tehran has denied it is engaged in any such talks.

Even so, Russia earned an estimated $7 billion from fossil fuel sales in the first two weeks of March since the war began, according to a Guardian analysis of data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

The jump in oil prices has made Russia “the single biggest winner in the near term” from the Iran conflict, Usha Haley, an international business professor at Wichita State University, told .

Despite Bessent saying the 30-day waiver is “narrowly tailored” to only oil already at sea, Haley noted this restriction is difficult to enforce in practice, especially given the current high global demand for oil.

“It has actually rescued Russia’s oil revenues from a very long-running decline,” Haley said.

Four years after Russia invaded Ukraine, its total fossil fuel exports—including coal, crude oil, liquified natural gas, pipeline gas, and oil products—are 27% lower than pre-invasion levels, per CREA data. As of February, the country’s fossil fuel exports had fallen 19% year-on-year, though the recent surge in demand driven by the Iran war is likely to change that trajectory, said Haley.

Putin plans to capitalize on this sudden opportunity while it lasts. The Russian president said during a Kremlin meeting with policymakers and Russian business leaders earlier this month that it’s “important for Russian energy companies to make use of the current moment.”

He also appeared to taunt his adversaries, saying Russia was ready to work with European countries as long as they commit to “long-term cooperation” and are willing to set aside “political overtones.”

Moscow’s special economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, went even further in a Telegram message earlier this month, saying “The U.S. has practically admitted the obvious” with its 30-day waiver, the Washington Post reported. “The global energy market cannot remain stable without Russian oil.”

In more recent days, Dmitriev has continued to gloat over the development on social media, lambasting the EU for distancing itself from Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and predicting more economic pain for Western countries as a result of rising oil prices.

“Europe can finally enjoy the success of both its Green and Russophobic agendas—no oil, no gas,” he wrote in a post on X Sunday.

The Iran conflict, now in its fourth week, has destabilized global oil supply after Iran’s attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil flows. In response, the U.S. has taken steps to shore up supply, including releasing 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve—the second largest drawdown in history.

The U.S. last week also issued a 30-day waiver running through April 19 that allows countries to purchase Iranian oil already loaded onto vessels. Bessent said in a post on X the move will add 140 million barrels of oil to global markets.

However, the U.S.’s easing of sanctions to try to stabilize oil markets has been criticized by some as ineffective for solving the global oil crisis.

Analysts at financial services firm Siebert Williams Shank wrote in a report earlier this month that easing sanctions will not increase total global oil supply because much of this sanctioned oil already reaches the market through clandestine channels.

“Sanctions have not materially impacted Russian production, only the price and markets they sell to, so they possess little incremental supply,” wrote the analysts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country has been locked in a full-scale war with Russia since 2022, has also said the move will embolden Putin.

“Russia spends the money from energy sales on weapons, and all of this is then used against us,” he said in a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this month.