New U.S. sanctions released on Feb. 24, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, don’t directly block Russian oil and gas imports.
“American oil and gas companies should not—should not—exploit this moment to hike their prices to raise profits,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a televised speech announcing the sanctions. “In our sanctions package, we specifically designed [it] to allow energy payments to continue. We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption. We’ve been coordinating with major oil-producing and [oil] consuming countries toward our common interest to secure global energy supplies.”
