Ex-Trump Sanctions Chief Outlines Plan if Putin Refuses Ceasefire

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Marshall S. Billingslea urges sweeping sanctions on Russian banks, energy, shipping — and penalties for China and India

By TRH Global Affairs Desk

NEW DELHI, August 14, 2025 — Marshall S. Billingslea, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing during Donald Trump’s first term, has laid out a sweeping 13-step sanctions strategy to deploy if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to agree to an immediate and complete ceasefire in Ukraine.

In a detailed thread on X, Billingslea called for “immediate, crushing sanctions” aimed at cutting off Russia’s financial system, isolating its energy sector, and targeting foreign partners enabling the Kremlin’s war economy.

His plan begins with imposing full blocking sanctions on all Russian financial institutions, including the 20% of banks that the Biden administration has not yet targeted, and ensuring — in coordination with the European Union — that no Russian bank retains access to the SWIFT payment network.

Billingslea urged amending Executive Order 14024 to authorize secondary sanctions on any foreign bank transacting with sanctioned Russian institutions, including several Chinese banks allegedly facilitating aerospace and defence exports to Russia. He also recommended warning Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that their banks could be next.

On the energy front, he proposed complete sectoral sanctions on all Russian energy transactions, coupled with secondary sanctions on any entity involved. He urged the EU to redirect payments for Russian energy into blocked accounts, while the US should enforce a 25% secondary tariff on India for its oil imports from Russia — and apply the same measure to China.

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Billingslea further called for adopting the EU’s ban on refined petroleum products made from Russian crude, closing gaps in sanctions on Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, and ordering G7-flagged ships to stop transporting Russian crude and oil products.

In one of his most aggressive proposals, he urged seizing more than $5 billion in frozen Russian state assets in US banks and allowing Ukraine to use the funds to purchase American-made weapons. He also pressed Congress to pass the Graham-Blumenthal sanctions bill, which would codify existing measures and expand presidential authority to impose new ones.

According to Billingslea, these actions could deprive Russia of up to $600 million per day in revenue, collapse the ruble, trigger hyperinflation, and make the war “real for Muscovites” as savings evaporate and prices double every few weeks — ultimately making Putin’s war effort unsustainable and politically toxic.

“When that happens,” Billingslea wrote, “we will get an unconditional ceasefire, followed by a peace deal.”