Western firms move to get back into Russia as peace efforts signal end of isolation

On the same day as President Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for him in Alaska earlier this month, Vladimir Putin signed a decree that would open the door for the US firm ExxonMobil to regain its stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project.

Moscow seized ExxonMobil’s stake without compensation and awarded it to a subsidiary of the Russian firm Rosneft after ExxonMobil announced it was quitting Russia in 2022.

For the Kremlin, getting ExxonMobil and other western companies back would help stabilise Russia’s economy, which has been bruised by sanctions.

Since Trump returned to office vowing to end the war in 24 hours, Putin has sought to appeal to the property developer’s business instincts, dangling the prospect of economic deals.

Accompanying Putin to Alaska along with veteran diplomats earlier this month were two prominent economic advisers, including the finance minister, Anton Siluanov.

The Kremlin’s envoy in talks with the US is the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev.

Following their meeting, Putin said Russia and the US could do more business together. “We look forward to dealing,” Trump said.

Even before the summit, however, ExxonMobil had held secret talks with Russia’s state energy company over a potential return to the Sakhalin-1 project, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A return of western companies to Russia will depend on the progress of negotiations. The US is still pushing for a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia has only intensified missile strikes on Ukraine as the talks drag on. At least 23 people, including four children, were killed in missile strikes on Kyiv last week that also damaged the British Council and EU offices. It was the deadliest attack on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit.

At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday, the US representative said the attacks cast doubt on Russia’s desire for peace, warning of further economic measures with “far-reaching consequences” if Moscow chose to prolong the war.

Photograph by Gribov Andrei via Alamy