Lack of New U.S. Sanctions Allows Russia to Replenish Its War Chest

Since President Trump returned to office in January, the United States has issued no new sanctions against Russia related to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In some cases, the administration has eased restrictions. And without new ones, analysts say, existing measures lose their force.

The result has created an opening for new dummy companies to funnel funds and critical components to Russia, including computer chips and military equipment that would otherwise be cut off to the Kremlin, trade and corporate records show.

Sanctions became the center point of the Western-led effort to isolate the country after it invaded Ukraine in 2022. The effort evolved into an international game of cat-and-mouse, as evasion schemes regularly sprang up around the world.

During his presidency, Joseph R. Biden Jr. imposed thousands of so-called maintenance sanctions targeting new schemes. But this year, those actions have come to a standstill, according to a New York Times analysis of restrictions on trade, financial transactions and other activities connected to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.

“Trump’s approach to economic statecraft is to impose pressure and get leverage and try to get the best deal possible,” said Edward Fishman, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. “For whatever reason, with Russia, he doesn’t want to have any leverage over Putin.”

The Biden administration placed, on average, over 170 new sanctions a month on entities linked to Russia from 2022 to 2024. The targets included oil and weapons production, tech procurement and banking.