FSUOGM: US vows to maintain pressure on Russian energy sector for decades to come

The US ambition is to halve Russia’s revenues from oil and gas by the end of the decade, a senior US diplomat told The Financial Times last week, while adding that Western sanctions on Moscow would need to be continued “for years to come.”

The comment by Geoffrey Pyatt, US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, would seem to negate hopes of near-term rapprochement in relations between the West and Russia, even if there was a peace deal or ceasefire reached to end the conflict in Ukraine. Instead, Pyatt told the FT that those sanctions must be maintained so that Moscow can never again launch such an invasion on one of its neighbours. He also implied that that peace deal is unlikely to materialise in the near term.

“This is something that we’re going to have to stick to for years to come, as long as Putin persists in this war,” Pyatt, formerly the US ambassador to Ukraine and Greece, told the newspaper.