Four and a half years of war, unprecedented Western sanctions, hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen assets, a breakdown in political relations, and public declarations about Russia’s economic isolation have created a persistent impression that American and European capital has definitively left the Russian economy.
But that impression does not correspond to reality.
Behind political declarations lies a far more complex system of ownership, reciprocal financial obligations, frozen shares, functioning commercial contracts, and potential investment deals.
According to the latest publicly available confirmation, Britain’s BP continued to formally own almost one-fifth of Rosneft. France’s TotalEnergies retains 19.4% of NOVATEK and 20.02% of the Yamal LNG project. Italy’s Eni participates in Russia’s gas transportation infrastructure. American investment funds and banks have historical portfolio positions and blocked claims relating to Russian assets. Meanwhile, the former assets of ExxonMobil, Shell, Fortum, Uniper, and other corporations remain the subject of property disputes.
And this is only the visible part of a considerably more complicated economic arrangement.
At the same time, the situation differs fundamentally from the pre-war period. Some Western corporations continue to earn money from Russian energy projects. Others retain legal rights but cannot receive income or dispose of their property. Still others have lost control of their investments and are seeking compensation.
As a result, Russia’s energy sector has become not only a source of financing for the war, but also one of the largest potential prizes in a future political settlement.
And there are grounds to assume that this prize is already becoming part of the negotiations between Moscow and Washington.
Russian Oil with British Shareholders, French Gas with European Profits
Let us begin with concrete examples.
In 2013, Britain’s BP acquired 19.75% of Rosneft through the sale of TNK-BP. This was a strategic stake in one of the world’s largest oil companies.
After February 2022, BP announced its withdrawal from Russia, withdrew from Rosneft’s management, and recorded approximately $25 billion in charges and write-downs associated with its Russian business.
Yet announcing a withdrawal and legally exiting the share capital are two entirely different things.
According to Reuters in March 2025, BP still formally held its 19.75% stake. No confirmed public information establishing that the sale had been completed could be found.
In other words, one of Britain’s largest corporations declared that it was ending its participation in the Russian oil industry, but the fate of its enormous shareholding remained unresolved.
The case of France’s TotalEnergies is even more revealing.
As of the end of 2025, the company retained 19.4% of Russia’s NOVATEK and a direct 20.02% stake in Yamal LNG. Including its indirect holding through NOVATEK, the French corporation’s aggregate economic exposure to Yamal LNG amounted to approximately 29.7%, although its direct corporate rights were limited to its actual stake in the project company.
At the end of 2025, the carrying value of TotalEnergies’ direct investment in Yamal LNG stood at $5.835 billion.
But the most interesting point is not even ownership.
In July 2026, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said that the company earned around $400 million annually from sales of liquefied natural gas originating in Russia.
This is therefore not only about frozen shares or potential property claims. It is about an operating commercial business.
At the same time, some dividends from Russian projects remain blocked, while sanctions restrictions make the free movement of financial flows difficult.
A paradoxical situation has emerged: European governments impose restrictions on Russia’s energy sector, Russian companies continue producing and selling energy resources, and individual Western corporations retain economic interests in the relevant projects.
Of course, this does not necessarily imply sanctions violations or mean that every dollar earned by a European company flows directly to the Russian state. It does, however, demonstrate that economic interdependence has proved far more resilient than the political relationship.
European participation in gas pipeline infrastructure is a separate story. European companies historically owned 49% of Nord Stream AG, the project company. Italy’s Eni has retained half of Blue Stream Pipeline Co, which is associated with transporting Russian gas to Türkiye.
Even where infrastructure has been politically or technically paralysed, ownership rights, financial claims, and property obligations have not necessarily disappeared.
Consequently, the economic divorce between Russia and Europe is far from complete. In many cases the spouses have already moved out, but the division of property has not even begun.
American Capital: From Losses to the Prospect of a New Redistribution
The American case has its own characteristics.
ExxonMobil previously owned 30% of the Sakhalin-1 project but lost control of that interest after 2022. The investment was written down, and property-related claims arose.
However, reports emerged in 2025 about contacts between ExxonMobil and Rosneft concerning a possible return to the project. This was not a confirmed investment agreement, but it was an important political signal: even after a profound rupture, the parties were willing to discuss restoring economic ties.
Another dimension is portfolio investment.
Before 2022, American and European financial institutions held substantial portfolios of Russian securities, including shares in the largest energy companies.
For example, at the end of 2021, 16.16% of Gazprom’s share capital was represented by American depositary receipts. By the end of 2024, that figure had fallen to 5.9%.
It would, however, be wrong to mechanically treat the entire 5.9% as American-owned. Depositary receipts can be held by investors from various countries, and their conversion changes the form of holding without necessarily changing the ultimate owner.
Significant Russian energy assets were historically included in the portfolios of American investment and financial institutions, including funds managed by BlackRock, JPMorgan, and other companies. Some of those securities were blocked or effectively written down to negligible values.
But a zero accounting value does not always mean that ownership rights have ceased to exist.
A share that cannot be sold today may become a valuable political and financial asset tomorrow—if trading, conversion, and capital repatriation mechanisms are restored.
And this brings us to the most interesting point.
In October 2026, reports appeared that US–Russian negotiations surrounding a settlement of the war in Ukraine included discussions of a multibillion-dollar deal involving Lukoil’s international assets.
These include oilfields, refining facilities, and filling-station networks outside Russia. American investors and Middle Eastern financial institutions have been named among the potential participants. Separately, the American firm Carlyle has been seeking to complete a transaction involving Lukoil’s international business, valued at approximately $20 billion.
These transactions have not been completed, and their fate depends on sanctions authorisations and political decisions.
What matters fundamentally, however, is that such arrangements are being discussed in parallel with Russian–American negotiations.
If these processes converge, the economic substance of future Russian–American normalisation may prove much more extensive than the publicly discussed question of restoring diplomatic relations.
Why American and European Interests Do Not Coincide
We traditionally speak of the collective West as if it were a single economic and political actor. But when it comes to Russian energy assets, no such unity of interests exists.
For decades, European companies invested in Russian oil and gas fields, processing facilities, power plants, gas pipelines, and gas production.
Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria, Finland, and Hungary have very different structures of economic relationships with Russia’s energy sector.
Some companies have retained profitable projects. Others have lost control of their property. Still others have suffered losses measured in billions of euros.
Finland’s Fortum and Germany’s Uniper lost control of their Russian electricity-generation assets. Wintershall Dea and Austria’s OMV lost control of investments in Russian gas fields.
American economic interests, by contrast, have shifted since 2022 to a greater degree away from ongoing production operations and toward property claims, financial instruments, and the possible acquisition of assets under future agreements.
An unusual configuration is possible: European corporations will seek the return of assets that previously belonged to them, while American investment groups may try to acquire new Russian assets, or assets linked to Russia, through a politically negotiated redistribution of ownership.
In other words, a significant portion of Europe’s negotiations may concern recovering what it has lost, while America’s may also concern acquiring something new.
This scenario is not inevitable, but the existing configuration of interests makes it entirely rational.
Moreover, Washington has an additional advantage: American sanctions authorisations can significantly determine whether major international energy transactions are feasible.
Thus, the United States can potentially act simultaneously as a political mediator, the regulator of sanctions, and the home country of prospective buyers.
This creates an objective conflict of interests. Not necessarily an unlawful one, nor one that has already materialised, but a very real one nonetheless.
The Grand Bargain: Russian Assets in Exchange for Western Sanctions Relief
Now let us look at events from Moscow’s perspective.
Since 2022, Russia has not only lost access to a substantial portion of international financial markets; it has also faced the freezing of hundreds of billions of dollars in state reserves and private assets.
In response, the Russian leadership assumed control over a number of enterprises owned by Western investors, restricted capital outflows, and established special mechanisms for handling foreign investments.
The result is a system of mutual property hostages.
The West controls substantial Russian financial assets and can restrict Russian companies’ international transactions.
Russia controls some of the assets of foreign corporations on its territory and can obstruct foreign shareholders’ exercise of their rights.
Yet despite this superficial symmetry, the positions of the parties are not the same.
Moscow wants access to technology, equipment, investment, financial systems, and international markets. Western companies want to restore the value of their assets, receive compensation, and regain access to profitable resource projects.
This is precisely where room for a future bargain emerges.
Imagine that Russian–American negotiations gradually extend beyond a ceasefire and begin to encompass the long-term normalisation of relations.
In that case, energy assets could be used as one component of a package agreement.
Russia could offer the return of selected Western investors, the restoration of corporate rights, compensation mechanisms, or access to new fields.
The United States could grant sanctions exemptions, authorise financial transactions, and approve investment deals.
European governments would seek to settle their own companies’ property claims while maintaining their separate agenda concerning Russian state assets frozen in the EU.
It is important to recognise that the funds of Russia’s central bank frozen in Europe and the private investments of Western companies in Russia are legally distinct categories. They cannot simply be offset against each other by administrative decree. Politically, however, they could be incorporated into a single negotiating package comprising several legal and financial mechanisms.
Such a development no longer seems purely theoretical.
In October 2026, the Financial Times reported on a US proposal to use part of Russia’s frozen state assets in a new financial arrangement under American control. European representatives resisted the initiative.
At the same time, Washington has shown a willingness to ease selected restrictions in the energy sector to a limited extent, based on its own economic priorities.
My hypothesis is that we are witnessing the early formation of a future marketplace for political concessions, in which Russian energy assets, Western sanctions, frozen capital, and the terms for ending the war may become interconnected bargaining items.
Moreover, the parties will seek to exchange not assets of equal nominal value, but precisely those things that have different marginal values for each side.
This is the classical logic of realpolitik.
Why Trump May Be Interested in Such an Arrangement
For Donald Trump’s administration, the economic component of international agreements has political value in its own right.
Trump assesses foreign-policy decisions not exclusively through a military or ideological lens, but also by their capacity to deliver economic results for the United States.
Influence over global energy flows, lower fuel prices for American consumers, access to new assets for US investors, and an opportunity to announce multibillion-dollar international deals all fit within this logic.
Against the backdrop of the energy shocks of 2026, Washington has already demonstrated how politically sensitive fuel prices can be within the United States.
This leads to a bold but rational assumption.
The American administration may view the gradual reintegration of Russia’s energy sector into regulated international economic relationships not as a concession to Moscow, but as an opportunity to gain additional levers over global energy markets and commercial advantages for American business.
Russia could also benefit from such an arrangement.
Moscow is interested not only in lifting individual sanctions but also in restoring investment attractiveness, reducing technological dependence, and increasing its room for manoeuvre in foreign economic relations.
The return of American capital to Russian projects could potentially give the Kremlin additional means of economic engagement with Washington.
The Russian leadership may also calculate that the emergence of major new American commercial interests would increase the political cost of another rupture in relations.
There are, however, limits: neither the American president nor major corporations enjoy absolute freedom of action. Sanctions legislation, Congress, European restrictions, litigation, and high political risks can block even commercially attractive projects.
Nevertheless, the outlines of a possible deal are already visible.
The Main Risk for Ukraine: The War Ends, but the Economic Deal Is Struck Without It
For Ukraine, this prospect presents both opportunities and risks.
The potential interest of major international businesses in stabilisation could create additional incentives to bring the war to an end.
But we cannot automatically assume that a commercial interest in restoring Russian–Western relations is equivalent to an interest in a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine.
These interests may overlap in part, but they may also come into conflict.
For American and European investors, the key questions will be asset valuations, property guarantees, the restoration of corporate rights, and expected profits.
For Ukraine, they will be an end to hostilities, preservation of the state, protection of the population, compensation for damage inflicted, and the creation of conditions for long-term development.
These are different systems of priorities.
There is a risk that certain economic arrangements between the United States and Russia will begin to be implemented faster than reliable security arrangements for Ukraine can be agreed.
For example, restoring some energy trade may prove politically and technically easier than achieving a sustainable agreement on territorial issues, international guarantees, or compensation for damage.
In that case, a dangerous asymmetry would emerge: the economic benefits of normalisation would begin to be distributed among major international players before Ukraine receives real security guarantees and resources for reconstruction.
That is why Ukrainian diplomacy must treat sanctions negotiations, frozen Russian assets, energy deals, and post-war reconstruction as interconnected tracks.
Ukraine cannot afford a situation in which the return of Western capital to Russia’s energy sector becomes the subject of concrete, enforceable agreements while Ukraine’s demands remain merely political promises.
At the same time, simply opposing any restoration of Russian–Western trade would be strategically insufficient. If such a process begins, Ukraine is unlikely to be able to stop it entirely on its own.
It would be far more rational to seek a settlement structure in which every substantial economic concession is accompanied by verifiable commitments relating to security, an end to aggression, and Ukraine’s reconstruction.
Three Plausible Scenarios for the Future
Three models of development can be identified for the next two to three years.
First: continued sanctions confrontation. Most Western assets in Russia would remain frozen or beyond their previous owners’ control. International litigation would continue. Russia would deepen cooperation with non-Western economic partners, while Western corporations would tally their losses and search for legal avenues for compensation.
Second: limited economic normalisation amid continuing political conflict. This is the most pragmatic intermediate option. The United States and Russia could agree on particular energy operations, asset swaps, licences, and commercial transactions without completely dismantling the sanctions regime. European states would move more slowly and less coherently. Even the absence of a final peace agreement would not necessarily prevent targeted economic arrangements.
Third: a comprehensive political and economic bargain. If a durable settlement of the war is reached, broader negotiations could begin over sanctions, ownership, international reserves, investments, and the future of energy infrastructure. This could create conditions for a major redistribution of corporate interests, potentially involving Russia, the United States, European countries, Gulf states, and Asian investors.
Today, I would regard the second scenario as the most realistic during a transitional period, and the third as a possible long-term objective for some participants in the Russian–American dialogue.
In Conclusion: What Will Really Be on the Bargaining Table?
The fundamental mistake in analysing contemporary international conflicts is to try to explain them exclusively through ideology, public rhetoric, and moral categories.
States do indeed act according to their political convictions, strategic goals, and public expectations. But they also compete for markets, technology, resources, property, and the ability to control global financial flows.
After 2022, Western governments and corporations did not simply lose all interest in Russian energy. Rather, the nature of that interest changed: in many cases, direct operational control gave way to frozen ownership, legal claims, and expectations of future transactions.
Russia, for its part, has not ceased to be interested in Western technology, financial infrastructure, and capital markets.
This mutual interest does not negate the war, make its end inevitable in the near term, or guarantee a peace settlement.
It does, however, provide an important economic foundation for possible agreements.
Several fundamental conclusions follow.
First. Western capital has not completely left Russia’s energy sector. Much of it has changed form—from active investment into frozen ownership rights, property claims, and potential instruments of negotiation.
Second. American and European interests in Russian energy are not identical. Washington may use economic normalisation to secure new advantages, whereas some European corporations are primarily seeking to restore positions they have lost.
Third. Russian energy assets may eventually become one of the instruments of a grand Russian–American bargain—alongside sanctions, international reserves, trade, and questions of European security.
Fourth. Ukraine risks finding itself in a position where it bears the main human and material losses of the war, while other participants in the international system capture part of the economic dividends of its conclusion.
And finally, a fifth and perhaps the most important conclusion.
We should not confuse public antagonism between states with the absence of economic interests among their elites and corporations. States may wage wars, impose sanctions, and maintain diplomatic conflicts, while major capital continues calculating asset values, potential returns, and the terms of future agreements.
Ultimately, the end of the war will mark not only the beginning of reconstruction in devastated cities and the restoration of international relations. It will also set off a far-reaching reconsideration of the economic balance of power, ownership, and the rules governing access to resources in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.
And this process may already be starting.
While some are debating who will win the war, others are preparing to discuss who will own the assets once it is over.
And for Ukraine, it is essential to have a seat at the table where both questions will be decided.
Ruslan Bortnik | October 21, 2026