The Iran War’s triggering skyrocketing oil prices, and the lifting of American sanctions on Russia’s petrol sales, will spark a boom in the Kremlin’s war chest, and its ability to step up missile blitzes on Ukraine, says a world-leading expert on wartime Russia and its top commanders.
Ironically, the U.S. about-face on Russian oil supplies for the global market, sparking windfall profits for the Kremlin, could also boost Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin’s speeding kamikaze drones to its military confederate Iran, which are being used to target American bases across the Middle East, says Peter Dickinson, publisher of the influential magazine Ukraine Alert, captivating chronicles of Putin’s quest to conquer Ukraine as part of a greater crusade to recreate the Soviet Union.
“Putin needs the [Iran] war to last” as long as possible to build up his weapons arsenal for the invasion of Ukraine, Dickinson told me in an interview.
Profits circuitously triggered by the Mideast conflict, and by the paradoxical U.S. freezing of restrictions on Moscow’s reentry into the world market, will rejuvenate Russia’s battered economy and its funding for the campaign to crush democratic Ukraine and annex it, says Dickinson, a scholar at the Atlantic Council, a prominent defense think tank in Washington, D.C.
Within hours after the U.S. unveiled its policy turnaround on allowing Russia’s petro-economy to resume worldwide sales, the presidents of France and Ukraine lashed out against the decision.
Following a summit at the Elysée Palace in Paris, Volodymyr Zelensky said suspending Washington’s sanctions “could provide Russia with about $10 billion for the war. That certainly does not help peace.”
The Ukrainian president fired off the rare criticism of White House strategies that benefit Russia during a joint press conference hosted by his French counterpart, according to Le Monde, France’s leading broadsheet newspaper.
President Emmanuel Macron echoed Zelensky’s censure of the American move, and underscored that higher oil prices sparked by the Iran War would not affect French or European sanctions on Russia.
Meanwhile, just days ago, gadfly reporter Mikhail Zygar, persona non grata with the Russian regime since the publication of his critical book All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin, wrote a fascinating Op-Ed for The New York Times that states due to Russia’s deteriorating economic situation, including from sanctions, President Putin was seriously considering winding down the war in Ukraine with real peace talks in the beginning of this year.
But then, Zygar said, the restart of the Israeli and American war with Iran in February, in one fell swoop, changed everything for the Kremlin.
The Mideast conflict’s impact on petroleum supplies, and the U.S. green light for Russian exports, will create booster rockets for a new phase of aerial assaults on Ukraine, said Zygar, who now lives in exile, and is a fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“By a strange twist of history,” Zygar wrote, “the start of the war in Iran halted the prospect of ending the war in Ukraine — at the very moment when Mr. Putin appeared ready to consider it.”
So I asked Ukraine scholar Peter Dickinson if he thought Russia could become, ironically, the biggest beneficiary of the American and Israeli fight to eliminate the threat of radical Iran building a nuclear arsenal, despite Moscow’s ongoing aid to Tehran in terms of providing weaponry and intelligence to precisely target U.S. jets and warships and radar installations across the Mideast.
“The partial lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russian oil is certainly beneficial for the Kremlin,” Dickinson says.
“But the main way Russia is benefiting from the Iran War is in broader terms due to the rise in oil prices and supply restrictions due to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.”
“With less oil available and prices soaring, Russia is able to sell from a strong position and can demand top prices.”
“Just over a month ago, this was not the case. In early 2026, Russia was forced to sell at extremely low prices and was struggling to find buyers at all.”
“So the Iran War is good news for Russia economically,” he muses.
“However, in order to have a major impact, Putin needs the war to last.”
“If a peace deal is agreed in the next month or so, Russia’s gains will be limited. From Moscow’s perspective, the longer the current disruption to global energy markets continues, the better.”
“If the war lasts into summer and beyond, it could transform Russia’s economic outlook,” Dickinson predicts.
“The Russian economy was beginning to show signs of serious distress in early 2026 as four years of war and sanctions took their toll.”
“There remain very significant economic threats – Putin is now reportedly ordering Russian oligarchs to “donate” money, which underlines the economic difficulties Moscow faces.”
“But if the Iran War … becomes a protracted conflict, this could solve many of Russia’s economic problems and provide financing for the invasion of Ukraine.”
“Putin has made the invasion of Ukraine an existential matter for himself and his regime – if the invasion ends without a clear victory, this would dramatically weaken his grip on power and undermine his legitimacy.”
“So he must either fight on indefinitely or achieve a convincing victory.”
Peter Dickinson, who was originally deployed to Ukraine as an officer of the British Council two decades ago, told me he thinks the European powers backing Ukraine will remain united in opposing any lifting of sanctions on Moscow’s international sales of petrol. They are likely to move forward, he adds, on threats to interdict ships in Russia’s shadow fleets clandestinely carrying oil to export markets.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued an order several days ago empowering the UK’s Royal Navy “to board shadow fleet vessels transiting UK waters as the UK steps up its pressure on Putin.”
“Putin’s shadow fleet operation,” Starmer said, is “fueling his illegal war in Ukraine.”
“The UK Armed Forces and law enforcement officers will now be able to interdict vessels that have been sanctioned by the UK.”
Starmer said London has been collaborating with European allies to monitor “several shadow fleet ships to enable interdiction in European and Mediterranean waters.”
“Putin is rubbing his hands at the war in the Middle East because he thinks higher oil prices will let him line his pockets.”
“That’s why we’re going after his shadow fleet even harder … starving Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign in Ukraine,” added Starmer, an eminent, Oxford-trained scholar on international law.
But the Kremlin is now rushing to intimidate the European powers that would stop and potentially prosecute the pilots of these shadow ships.
One of Putin’s top lieutenants recently threatened to deploy the Russian navy to escort its shadow armadas, raising the prospect of sparking sea skirmishes with European interdiction forces.
Could the Kremlin actually follow through on these threats?
“For now, Europe is attempting to present a united front and signaling that it will not limit restrictions on Russian energy imports or change course on plans to impose a complete ban,” Dickinson told me.
“A number of European countries are taking firmer steps to target and restrict the operations of Putin’s shadow fleet of tankers.”
“This is very bold behavior by European standards,” he adds, “and suggests there is now considerable confidence in European capitals that Putin will not act militarily to defend his shadow fleet.”
“Russia’s failure to act decisively regarding initial interceptions of shadow fleet vessels has no doubt encouraged European leaders.”
“This is certainly good news for Kyiv,” Dickinson says, “as it suggests that Europeans are beginning to overcome their crippling fear of escalation and may no longer be quite so easily intimidated by Putin.”
