Russia sees a U.S. sanctions waiver on its oil as an attempt by Washington to stabilise global energy markets, and the two countries have a shared interest in this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
The United States issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products currently at sea, in what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said was a step to stabilise global markets roiled by the Iran war.
Without significant volumes of Russian oil entering the market, such stabilisation is impossible, Peskov said.
“We see actions by the United States aimed at trying to stabilise energy markets. In this respect, our interests coincide,” he said.
The move, the second significant rollback of Ukraine war-related U.S. sanctions in just over one week, was the latest attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to tame energy prices after the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran paralysed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Peskov said there was a risk the global energy crisis could escalate.
“Of course such actions will, to some extent, help stabilise this market, because without significant volumes of Russian oil, market stabilization is impossible,” he said.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov, writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)