Kyiv is urging European countries still guilty of purchasing Russian oil to buy American —and even offering storage space for US energy firms to bring them closer to market, a top Ukrainian official told The Post.
President Trump last week phoned some European leaders gathered in Paris to discuss the Ukrainian war to insist they stop buying Russian oil and to urge them to join in on his proposed sanctions targeting the product that fuels Moscow’s war machine.
“What President Trump said [was] very clear — we are absolutely [supportive],” said Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top adviser, on Monday.
“It’s time to forget totally about gas and oil from Russia in Europe,” Yermak said. “We know still some countries are buying and in Paris [were] very honest conversation about this.”
The idea is mutually beneficial for Ukraine, the US and all of their allies in the conflict, Yermak said.
Sanctions would push European nations to buy American oil instead of the Russian energy, benefitting the US economically but also the world by giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a reason to stop his war on Ukraine.
“[The US and Ukraine are] working [on] how to really make this … mutually interesting, mutually beneficiary and profitable because absolutely we agree with the phrase, ‘America First,’ ” he said. “It means that, if we are talking for us — Ukraine first — but it’s good if all the countries of such principles joined in.”
“America First” has been Trump’s catch-phrase in promoting US interests domestically and abroad.
“It means that we can say all of us first … because we absolutely agree that our future cooperations have to be successful for Ukraine and for United States,” Yermak said.
The proposed sanctions would also hit US adversaries such as China — which, along with India, is the top purchaser of Russian oil.
Trump already slapped an additional 50% tariff on India last week as punishment for its Russian oil purchases but has so far held out on levying his threatened widespread sanctions targeting other countries that do so.
Ukraine is willing to partner with the US energy sector, as the country has a vast capacity to store and move liquified natural gas that American companies could sell to Europe to fill the gap that would be created by a block on Russian oil, Yermak said.
Since Trump’s call to Paris, Kyiv leaders have been meeting with European leaders to push the US president’s vision for a united Europe against Russian oil and gas.
Last week, Zelensky met with the head of one the most prolific European purchasers of Russian oil — Slovakia — to urge the nation just off Ukraine’s western border to halt its dependence on Moscow’s energy sector.
“There’s good news [from] that during the meeting with Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico and President Zelensky,” Yermak said. “They discussed this subject, and it looked like Slovakia is ready to find the opportunities of how to make good for their people and to settle this problem without the Russian oil and Russian gas.”
Still, he cautioned that no formal pledges had been made, but “we received good signal that they are ready to work with Ukraine and other partners to find this solution.
“Ukraine is very open. We said that for us, we are ready for any kind of the cooperation, and we will be very open,” the chief adviser said. “Just the red line for us is that Russia doesn’t receive just one dollar that finances its war machine that is killing Ukrainians.”
Hungary is also a top European purchaser of Russian oil, after the European Union granted Budapest and Bratislava exemptions to its embargo of Russian crude in 2022 because of both countries’ reliance on Moscow for their energy needs.
But France, Belgium and Spain — all staunch adversaries of the Kremlin — also accounted for roughly 85% of all Russian liquid natural gas imports in 2024, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Other countries that used to be heavily reliant on Russian oil, such as the Czech Republic, have completely divested from Moscow’s energy sector, proving that it can be done even for those nations most dependent on the Kremlin for its energy.
Trump on Sunday told reporters he is ready to move to “phase two” over sanctions against Russian oil after Moscow’s largest-ever attack on Ukraine over the weekend.
On Saturday night, Russia launched more than 810 drones and nine missiles into the country — killing at least four civilians in Kyiv, including a mother and her 2-month-old infant.
It remains unclear how close Trump is to actually implementing the sanctions. When speaking to reporters later Sunday, he said he would be speaking soon with Putin — but did not mention the proposed sanctions.
“The Russia Ukraine situation — we’re going to get it done,” Trump said, without going into detail.
