WASHINGTON DC – With ceasefire talk swirling and sanctions fatigue setting in, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are warning the White House that Vladimir Putin’s war machine is still running – and it’s running on oil.
A bipartisan group of senior lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to expand sanctions on Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet,” the network of tankers that has allowed the Kremlin to evade oil sanctions, finance its war in Ukraine and operate largely beyond the reach of Western enforcement.
In a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the leadership of the US Helsinki Commission argues that cutting off the fleet is now essential to choking off Vladimir Putin’s war economy.
The request comes as the EU has moved to sanction roughly 100 additional Russian-linked vessels and the enabling organizations behind them. Commission leaders want the US to follow suit – and quickly – to prevent Moscow from exploiting transatlantic gaps in enforcement.
Bipartisan push to match Europe
The letter is signed by Co-Chairs Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), along with Ranking Members Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN), underscoring the durability of the bipartisan consensus on Ukraine policy despite broader divisions in Washington.
“As Vladimir Putin continues Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, we urge you to impose further sanctions on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet,’” the lawmakers wrote.
They praised recent US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil and the administration’s efforts to reduce European consumption of Russian petroleum, arguing that targeting the fleet would reinforce both strategies.
“The shadow fleet is a financial lifeline for Putin,” the letter states. “Without it, Putin’s ability to fund his war would be placed in question.”
How shadow fleet operates
Lawmakers paint a picture of a sprawling, deliberately opaque network designed to defeat sanctions enforcement.
To keep oil flowing, Russia routinely changes tankers’ names, reflags them under different national registries, obscures ownership through shell companies and disables location tracking.
The result, they warn, is a fleet of vessels that are “frequently old, dilapidated, insufficiently insured, and helmed by inexperienced crew.”
Beyond funding the war, the commission argues, the fleet poses serious risks to global maritime security, critical undersea pipelines and cables, and the environment.
The letter also links the shadow fleet to a broader ecosystem of sanctions evasion. “The tanker operators, financiers, flag registries, foreign countries, and opaque shell companies that facilitate Russia’s shadow fleet are complicit,” the lawmakers wrote, noting that many of the same vessels have transported sanctioned Iranian and Venezuelan oil.
‘Close the loopholes’
For the commission’s leaders, the policy prescription is straightforward: close the loopholes Putin has exploited and align US sanctions with those imposed by European allies.
“Putin should know that we will punish his relentless attacks on Ukraine – and his targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure –with real consequences,” the letter says.
“Expanding the current shadow fleet sanctions to match those of our European partners is the next necessary step,” reads the letter.
That argument dovetails with remarks Senator Wicker delivered earlier from the Senate floor, where he framed economic pressure as inseparable from any credible peace effort.
No rewards at the negotiating table
“Putin should not achieve through negotiation what he has not managed to achieve on the battlefield,” Wicker said, warning that Russia’s recent escalation – including the largest air attacks of the war – shows Moscow is not serious about peace.
Wicker outlined what he described as emerging consensus among the US, Ukraine and European allies: Ukraine should not be forced to surrender territory it controls; the US should play a permanent role in Ukraine’s security guarantees; and assistance to Kyiv must continue as long as Russia presses its campaign.
He offered unusually blunt language about Putin himself, calling him “unrepentant,” “a war criminal who should be behind bars,” and fundamentally untrustworthy.
“We have no reason to smile back at Vladimir Putin or trust him with anything but caution and contempt,” Wicker said.
Pressure, not patience
Wicker also pointed to polling showing that 70 percent of Americans do not trust Putin to honor a peace agreement and cited Russia’s abduction of more than 20,000 Ukrainian children, repression of dissidents and alignment with authoritarian regimes as evidence that time alone will not change Moscow’s behavior.
Congress, he noted, has already moved to reinforce Ukraine through the National Defense Authorization Act, extending the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and intelligence sharing – steps he credited President Donald Trump with signing enthusiastically.
Allies, too, are stepping up, with NATO countries financing and transferring equipment to Kyiv.
Still, Wicker argued, economic measures like shadow fleet sanctions are essential to delivering a clear message: Russia cannot simply wait out the West.
As Washington weighs diplomacy and deterrence in parallel, the bipartisan message from the Helsinki Commission is unmistakable: if Putin’s war runs on oil, then the ships carrying it should be next in the sanctions crosshairs.