Europe has developed an expensive habit of financing both sides of Russia’s war. It supplies Ukraine with the means to resist invasion while buying gas from the country doing the invading.
In the Arctic, this contradiction has acquired an almost admirable efficiency: European customers buy the gas, international shipping companies carry it, and European infrastructure helps keep the business running.
President Donald Trump now has an opportunity to interrupt the arrangement. Congress has passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act and sent it to his desk. He should sign it and target the specialized tankers serving Yamal LNG, the centerpiece of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s flagship Arctic gas program. Striking this trade offers one of his strongest opportunities to increase economic pressure on Moscow and bring the war to an earlier end.
Fourteen Arc7 vessels keep Yamal connected to its customers. Their significance lies in their engineering. Shipping liquefied natural gas through heavy Arctic ice requires capabilities that an ordinary tanker cannot acquire with a change of flag. As winter approaches, Russia’s dependence on these ships becomes more acute. Washington has an unusually concentrated target.
The sums involved are substantial. Sanctions watchdog Urgewald estimates that the European Union paid approximately €7.3 billion for Yamal LNG in just over eight months of 2026, exceeding the estimated value for the whole of 2025. Between January and August, Europe took almost nine out of every ten tonnes exported. Putin’s Arctic ambitions remain remarkably dependent on customers whose governments regard him as a strategic threat.
Europe’s response has included protecting the companies sustaining this trade. In its 21st sanctions package, the EU agreed an exemption benefiting Greek shipping company Dynagas, allowing qualifying shipments of Russian LNG to non-EU customers to continue under older contracts.
The gas goes elsewhere, but European companies keep the business, and Russia keeps the export earnings. This concession protects shipping interests rather than Europe’s gas supply. The Kremlin could hardly have asked for a more convenient arrangement.
Trump should make clear that Washington expects something stronger. Decisive American sanctions would put Britain and the EU under pressure to follow, while making commercial exemptions harder to defend. He should use that influence to secure the strongest possible maritime restrictions across the alliance, covering the ships and the services that keep them operating.
The legislation does not automatically sanction all 14 tankers. His administration must review the fleet, designate vessels meeting the legal criteria, and pursue those enabling sanctioned operations.
Ownership changes and intermediaries must offer no easy escape. Britain and Europe should match that resolve, closing exemptions rather than negotiating fresh ones.
DON JR. DIDN’T BREAK THE LAW IN THE BAHAMAS. HE DID SOMETHING MUCH DUMBER
No sanctions package can guarantee peace. But weakening a flagship export program, while bringing allies behind a tougher common policy, would give Putin stronger reasons to reconsider the cost of continuing his war. Acting before winter would exploit a vulnerability that becomes harder for Russia to avoid as the ice returns.
Trump wants credit for ending the war. Here is an opportunity to earn it: sign the bill, sanction the Arctic fleet, and encourage European allies to match that pressure by closing exemptions that continue to support Russia’s Arctic LNG trade.
Alexander Kirk is a sanctions campaigner.