Return to Kellogg: After a six-month pause, Trump signals a willingness to escalate relations with the Kremlin this autumn
Trump's much-anticipated ‘very tough statements’ towards Moscow left many disappointed. Most notably, Trump effectively postponed until September the introduction of new sanctions targeting Russian oil exports. In this sense, the American president’s remarks appear to be a continuation of the tactic he has employed for the past six months, repeatedly deferring a policy of pressure on Moscow under various pretexts, despite persistent calls from Kyiv and European capitals to take a harder line.
At the same time, there are some fundamental changes in Trump's approach to the ‘Russian problem,’ at least at the rhetorical level. Until now, the very discussion of new military supplies to Kyiv had been strictly off-limits within his administration. Now, not only has Trump raised the issue, but he has also indicated that both defensive and offensive weapons, and potentially even long-range missiles capable of striking targets in Russian cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg, could be up for discussion. While the supply of such missiles is not currently on the table, officials in Washington suggest it could become so in the future.
In essence, Trump's ‘very tough statements’ are a return to the doctrine proposed by Special Envoy Keith Kellogg, who as early as January had advocated combining economic pressure with threats of expanded arms deliveries to Ukraine as a lever against Moscow. Trump rejected this doctrine and spent six months playing the ‘good cop’, effectively allowing Putin to prepare and launch a major offensive on the Ukrainian front under highly favourable conditions.
These ‘very tough statements’ should likely be viewed as a warning to Moscow that this pause is coming to an end and that Washington is ready to deploy significant measures against Russia this autumn, including sanctions targeting buyers of Russian oil.
While it is not possible to remove all Russian oil from the global market, one particular country, India, could become the focus of Washington’s pressure, as it currently accounts for around 40% of Russia’s crude oil exports. By autumn, the oil market is likely to be in a position where excess supply, largely from the Middle East, could replace up to half of this volume. While this would deprive India of part of the income it has earned in recent years from re-exporting refined Russian oil to Europe, it would not amount to a catastrophe for the market.
However, whether Trump will follow through on his threats remains to be seen.
Return to Kellogg
Donald Trump has finally donned the ‘bad cop’ hat in relation to Moscow. However, in typical fashion, the shock-value populism of some of his statements diverts attention and obscures the meaning of others. In the former category we might place Trump’s confidential queries to Volodymyr Zelensky – can Ukraine strike Moscow and St Petersburg? – which the White House quite deliberately 'leaked' to the press (both The Washington Post and The Financial Times picked it up immediately). In the latter category falls the unexpected and difficult-to-explain decision to delay new measures to ramp up economic pressure on Moscow by 50 days.
The Russian stock market interpreted Trump's statement as a postponement of sanctions, rising 2.7% after the news was announced. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, also expressed confusion at such a long delay. Global oil markets, meanwhile, simply ignored the announcement.
Such scepticism is entirely justified. Trump first announced the possibility of increasing economic pressure on Moscow back on 30 March, when talks with Russia in Riyadh had stalled, that is, more than three months ago. Yet within days he dispatched Steve Witkoff to Moscow on a new diplomatic mission. When that round of talks also failed, Kyiv and European capitals expected Trump to act in early May, assuming the matter had been agreed upon. However, Trump seized upon a flimsy excuse – a vague suggestion by Putin of a potential meeting in Istanbul – to once again postpone action. When that too came to nothing, Trump applied pressure on the Senate to prevent it from considering Lindsey Graham’s bill on tariffs targeting buyers of Russian oil.
At the time, Trump’s behaviour could perhaps be explained by preparations for a possible operation against Iran. But the fact remains that Trump’s threats to pressure Moscow have never materialised. Each time, he has found some reason to delay. The new 50-day postponement fits squarely into this recurring pattern.
Just ahead of Trump’s announcement, Marco Rubio unexpectedly met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and afterwards mentioned (without giving any details) that Moscow had offered new and interesting proposals on resolving the conflict in Ukraine. The issue went no further, but it appears Washington had prepared a 'fallback narrative' in case Trump once again chose to delay a shift to a tougher stance on Moscow. And it is easy to imagine that around 1 September, Putin may again provide Trump with some glimmer of hope, giving the American president another excuse to postpone sanctions. Especially since Trump himself hinted that he is ready to play out this scenario once more, remarking that he has not 'written Putin off' just yet.
In reality, what Trump outlined in his 'very tough statement' on Russia is exactly what his special envoy for talks with Moscow and Kyiv, Keith Kellogg, proposed back in January, that is, six months ago, namely, to intensify economic pressure on Moscow and resume expanded arms deliveries to Ukraine, should the Kremlin refuse to compromise (→ Re:Russia: The Frenzy of Transactionalism). Yet Trump insisted there was a simpler way to end the war and sidelined Kellogg from negotiations, thereafter spending half a year avoiding any real pressure on Moscow under one pretext or another.
It was no secret to anyone that during this time the Kremlin had been planning, and then launched, a decisive offensive in Ukraine aimed at breaking its defences. However, Trump not only failed to take any steps that might have complicated this offensive for Moscow, but on three occasions during this period suspended military supplies to Kyiv that had been approved under Biden, or redirected shipments elsewhere. It is difficult to escape the impression that Trump’s strategy was to avoid obstructing Russia’s 2025 offensive and may have formed part of an informal understanding with the Kremlin. The postponement of new economic sanctions at least until the end of summer broadly aligns with such an interpretation of events.
Reverse escalation for de-escalation: why Trump started talking about Tomahawks
At the same time, in light of Trump’s statements and the deliberate leaks from his administration, a significant shift in his approach to the Russia–Ukraine war should be noted, at least on a rhetorical level. As recently as this spring, the prospect of new American arms deliveries to Ukraine was an absolute taboo among members of the Trump administration. Now, not only has the issue been normalised, it has in fact become something of an information battering ram intended to compensate for hesitation on economic sanctions.
Trump’s rhetoric for selling these deliveries to his core electoral base has now fully taken shape: America, he stresses, will profit from the arms deliveries, which will be paid for by the Europeans, Trump emphasises. According to Axios, the US intends to sell up to $10 billion worth of weapons under the so-called 'European scheme'. Crucially, the discussion now encompasses not only defensive weapons (such as Patriot systems and missiles), but also offensive ones – including both short- and long-range missiles. Among the weapons reportedly under discussion, alongside ATACMS, long-range Tomahawk missiles have been intermittently mentioned.
Although Trump has already stated that he is not currently considering sending long-range missiles to Kyiv, the mere mention of them, and the associated talk of strikes on Moscow and St Petersburg, should not be dismissed as mere 'smoke and mirrors'. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who spoke with members of Trump’s team, referred to the conversation about strikes on Moscow, calling it ‘escalation for the sake of de-escalation’, apparently echoing a phrase used by a Trump administration official. Ignatius does not expand on this, but the paradox is that the doctrine of 'escalation to de-escalate' is considered in the US to be a Russian invention. It includes, for example, the use of tactical nuclear weapons to end a conventional conflict. In fact, both Putin’s indirect nuclear threats early in the Ukraine war and the writings of Russian political analysts Karaganov and Trenin, who called for nuclear threats to become an operational factor, represent an extension of this idea (→ Re:Russia: The Doctrine of Nuclear Non-Deterrence).
In this case, the Trump administration is using a kind of 'mirror' rhetoric. Of course, in practical terms, supplying Tomahawks to Kyiv has not been seriously discussed, and sources close to the Trump team are quick to clarify this in private. However, the mere fact that such deliveries are no longer categorically ruled out is intended to limit Moscow’s scope for blackmail. Washington is signalling that mass missile strikes on Kyiv or the use of tactical nuclear weapons could trigger a decision to supply Ukraine with such systems, giving Kyiv the means to launch retaliatory strikes on Russian cities.
Thus, at a rhetorical level, the Trump administration has not only lifted the taboo on supplying Ukraine with new weaponry, including offensive arms, but has also immediately expanded the boundaries of the debate well beyond anything that was publicly contemplated under the Biden administration. At the same time, the actual scale and timing of deliveries promised to Kyiv under the 'European scheme' remains unclear. One moment there is talk of one or two additional Patriot systems, then it is 17. Trump claims that European transfers of Patriot missiles to Ukraine have already begun. However, it is worth noting that the intensity of Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities rose sharply in late March and early April, and during this entire period Trump blocked the transfer of additional missiles for the Patriot systems Ukraine already possessed, significantly weakening its defensive capabilities and its protection of urban centres.
Can Trump strike a blow against Russian oil? The answer is yes
Although, as previously mentioned, Trump’s 'very tough statement' effectively postponed the introduction of new sanctions against Russian exports, the realism of that threat has paradoxically increased.
Firstly, the level of tariffs proposed by Trump has shifted from an absurd 500%, to a more plausible 100%. Tariffs of 400–500% had a stylistic air of populist posturing. Secondly, the new draft legislation, according to the pro-Trump New York Post, appears more pragmatic and functional. Trump’s team is reportedly negotiating with the Senate so that the new law would grant the president near-unlimited authority to impose and lift tariffs, effectively making them a flexible tool of diplomatic bargaining. It is also assumed that the law will allow Trump to determine the specific structure and targets of the tariff regime.
Arguably, the most important point is this: as experts rightly note, tariffs cannot be imposed on all buyers of Russian resources, and not even all buyers of Russian oil. There simply is not enough supply on the global market to replace those volumes. In 2024, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Russia exported 8.51 million barrels per day, making it the world’s third-largest supplier after Saudi Arabia (9.52 million) and the United States (8.93 million). However, the selective use of punitive tariffs targeting a portion of Russian exports does appear to be a realistic option.
Since the G7 countries imposed an embargo on supplies from Russia, according to the CREA analytical centre, China has accounted for 47% of Russian oil exports, India for 38%, Turkey for 6%, and the EU for the same 6%. Thus, the main buyers of Russian oil are China and India. Introducing tariffs against China is unlikely: Trump has already lost one battle on that front and is unlikely to want a repeat, especially with trade talks with Beijing nearing conclusion. China, for its part, has already issued a sharp rebuke in response to Trump's new tariff threat.
India, however, is a different matter. Prior to the war and sanctions on Russian oil, India’s primary oil suppliers were Iraq and Saudi Arabia. But in recent years, having not joined the sanctions, India has not only significantly increased imports of cheaper Russian oil for domestic use but has also become one of the world’s largest exporters of petroleum products, overtaking China. According to India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, cited by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the value of Indian petroleum exports rose from $29 billion in 2019 to $57 billion in 2024. Notably, the largest buyer of Indian petroleum products is the EU (with the Netherlands alone accounting for roughly a quarter of all exports in 2024). In this way, India has effectively become a conduit through which Europe continues to receive refined products from Russian crude, despite the embargo, making it a major beneficiary of sanctions on Russian oil.
Replacing all Russian supplies to India is also not possible at this point. In June, according to Kpler data cited by Hellenic Shipping News,Russia supplied India with 2.08 million barrels per day in June. Meanwhile, the June IEA forecast projected a global market surplus of around 1.1 million barrels per day for the year. That figure is likely to increase, as the forecast came out before OPEC+ members agreed to a further production increase of 411,000 barrels per day starting in August. They had already lifted production by the same amount in May, June, and July. It is possible that production could be increased again by another 500,000 barrels per day before the end of the year, according to Bloomberg sources.
This would mean that OPEC+ is fully lifting the production caps it had previously imposed on itself. In practice, the additional oil reaching the market will be lower, as some members are simply 'legalising' volumes by which they were already exceeding their quotas. Nonetheless, replacing at least half of Russian oil deliveries to India now appears plausible. At the same time, these calculations suggest that implementing such a threat earlier would likely have been unworkable, as global oil production simply lacked the necessary surplus.
In such a scenario, India would lose some of the income it currently earns from selling refined Russian crude, notes Mukesh Sahdev of Rystad Energy in a comment to Bloomberg. According to India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in May, a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia was $5 more expensive than Russian crude, and Iraqi oil was 50 cents more expensive. Even so, India would still retain its position in the EU petroleum products market, albeit with reduced profit margins.
It is noteworthy that, at this very moment, an Indian delegation is in Washington. According to Bloomberg sources, Delhi hopes to negotiate a reduction in tariffs on Indian exports to the US from the 26% announced by Trump to 20%. The issue of Russian oil supplies may well be part of these negotiations.
Thus, Trump’s 'very tough statements' mark a return to Kellogg’s doctrine after a six-month pause that allowed Putin to plan and conduct his offensive in Ukraine under more favourable conditions. They not only lift the taboo on new arms deliveries to Kyiv, but also serve as a warning to Moscow of a readiness to escalate, particularly in terms of the supply of offensive weapons. At the same time, they postpone the phase of full-scale pressure on Moscow until at least early autumn and leave the door open for renewed negotiations. Most likely, these statements serve as a signal that the period during which Trump, for one reason or another, agreed to play the role of 'good cop' is set to end this autumn, precisely when the oil market should be sufficiently primed for expanded pressure on Russian crude.