Trump Administration Quietly Lifts Sanctions on Russian Firm

It’s subtle by design. This is how normalization begins: with a test ping.

Paks Nuclear Power Plant, Hungary

There have been many dark chapters in American national security since 2008—moments that deserve scrutiny, debate, even denial. We’ve had room to argue, to second-guess, to claim ignorance. But many of those moments were defined not by what administrations did, but by what they refused to do.

The path to U.S. irrelevance will not be marked by a single catastrophe. It will unfold as a slow, deliberate collapse—and 2025 is quietly shaping up to be the year Washington stepped on the gas and raced downhill.

June 29th will be remembered. It must be. It marks the day we shift from gathering intangible signs of America’s quiet protection of the Putin regime to hard, undeniable evidence.

Yesterday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced that the Trump administration has lifted sanctions blocking the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant. Construction had stalled because the Biden administration sanctioned Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant, which was building two reactors.

These politically motivated measures were imposed by the Biden admin just before Donald Trump took office, Szijjártó said. Grateful to the Trump admin, as this project will guarantee our future energy supply. Construction of the major pieces of equipment for the Paks nuclear plant is proceeding in Russia and France. On site in Paks, construction can now proceed at a faster pace.

This is not a stray incident. It can’t be.

Some of you may remember the image I shared on June 18th, outlining how the Trump administration would escalate its Putin protection plan from that point forward.

Here’s what I wrote back then:

We are clearly in the Conditioning Phase.

The Trump administration hasn’t removed any sanctions outright—yet. But they’ve begun shifting the tone. Pro-Russia statements are trickling out. Officials now openly say that no new sanctions will be introduced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed that Ukraine aid will slow down. And the Director of National Intelligence has begun floating nuclear war warnings into the media stream.

This is how narrative groundwork is laid. They’re not pulling the plug yet—but they’re setting the stage. Slowly pulling oxygen from Ukraine while keeping Russia from taking further hits. No sharp moves. Just a controlled deceleration.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing that triggers alarms. That’s the point.

Now, the administration is knocking on the door of the Pre-Desperation phase. They’re not fully in it yet—this is a test ping.

A probe.

By quietly removing sanctions on a Russian state-owned company, they’re asking: What will you do? We've gone from blocking the G7’s attempt to lower the oil price cap… to lifting sanctions on Rosatom, all under the pretext of helping Hungary generate more electricity years down the line.

Make no mistake—this isn’t random. The regular backchannel talks between the Kremlin and Trump’s team have already produced a menu of low-hanging fruit. Moscow hands them over. Washington tests the waters. They watch the global response, monitor the media reaction, and calculate the optics. Then they move to the next item on the list.

And just like that, helping the Kremlin will be rebranded as “de-escalation.” As “peace.” All while refusing to even acknowledge the drone and missile barrages raining down from Russia. That, they’ll tell you, is just war—the kind America shouldn't talk about.

The timing wasn’t accidental. They made the move while U.S. media was consumed by the GOP’s mega tax cut bill—a bill that guts Medicaid and has even Republican senators on edge. It’s a classic distraction play. They’re burying the Kremlin favor beneath domestic chaos because they’re not confident about the public reaction.

Which tells us something important: they’re testing the limits. That’s why I expect the administration to slow-walk the sanctions rollback—cautiously, incrementally. No overt rush to help the Kremlin just yet. But make no mistake, they are trying to keep Russia’s economic ship from sinking deeper into the war hole.

Can this administration protect the Russian economy?

No.

What they can do is extend the war—by giving Putin a bit more runway. The real bite of sanctions comes when the U.S., the EU, and the rest of the G7 act in unison to choke the cash flow into the Russian war machine. The Trump administration loosening a few screws won’t save Putin. Since the invasion began, he’s been burning through nearly $6 billion a month in national reserves.

This won’t reverse that. It won’t even come close. The Kremlin’s war spending over the next six months won’t match the last six—and that gap is permanent. Which raises the question: why is the Trump administration even taking this unnecessary risk?

It feels like the move of an empire deluded by its fading influence—still thinking it can dictate outcomes, when in reality it’s just playing spoiler. But from Putin’s perspective, any extra dollar counts. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, do you say no to an extra ten bucks?

The only real way Trump could help Putin is by removing all sanctions. That might buy Moscow breathing room. But even then, there’s no guarantee it would stop the economic bleed.

So what is the State Department—now led by Marco Rubio—thinking? There’s nothing to gain here. This is unnecessary. And it reeks of desperation. They’re chaining themselves to a sinking ship.

Is there anything Europe and Ukraine can do about this?

Yes.

First and foremost: get the information out. Make it public. Make it loud. Let the world see exactly what this administration has done. The United States—signatory of the Budapest Memorandum, which promised to protect Ukraine in case of invasion—has just removed sanctions on the invader after the invasion. That betrayal must stick. That stain must follow them for years.

The administration is gambling on silence. They’re betting the media will bury the story, and that people will grow numb to it. But exposure breaks normalization. Europe must call this out. Ukraine must make noise. Pressure must rise—not just on the administration, but on the Republican Party itself.

GOP Senators need to pick up the phone and ask Marco Rubio what exactly his State Department is doing. There’s a Russia sanctions bill sitting in the Senate with 85 votes behind it—ready to pass. And yet Rubio’s department is quietly clearing the way for sanctions to be lifted on Russian entities. This isn’t just a Treasury action. In foreign policy-sensitive cases like Hungary’s nuclear deal with Rosatom, the State Department’s policy guidance is decisive.

They don’t just sign off—they set the direction.

It’s incoherent. Unless, of course, the goal isn’t coherence. It’s appeasement.

And that’s the final point. If Europe, Ukraine, and the broader international community do not speak up now, this will not be the last rollback. It will be the first of many.

Authoritarian regimes rely on silence.

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