The Daily Populous Sunday March 15th, 2026 day edition
Authored by brief.gizmet.dev and submitted by Mikeynphoto2009

Washington is simultaneously sanctioning Russia, waiving those sanctions, and fighting a war that generates the oil revenue funding Russian operations.

On 12 March, OFAC issued General Licence 134 — a 30-day waiver permitting delivery of Russian crude, including shadow fleet vessels the US spent three years sanctioning. The reason: the Hormuz closure removed so much oil from the market that conventional tankers cannot replace it without Russian supply.

The result is a three-policy contradiction operating in real time:

Policy 1: Sanction Russia to constrain its war economy.

Policy 2: Waive those sanctions because the Iran campaign needs Russian oil flowing.

Policy 3: Fight the Iran campaign that created the oil price spike earning Russia ~$150 million per day in additional revenue (ISW, 13 March 2026).

Urals crude now commands a $1.50/bbl premium at Shandong — Russia commands a premium, not a discount (Argus Media). The Financial Times estimates $3.3-4.9 billion in additional Russian revenue by end of March. ISW states its prior economic pressure forecasts on Moscow are "partially invalidated."

Meanwhile, Russian Krasukha-4 electronic warfare systems and Kometa-M anti-jamming modules — physically delivered to Iran by Il-76 transport aircraft — directly sustain Iranian warfighting capability against the same US-led campaign that is funding Russian operations.

Treasury Secretary Bessent's deadline to respond to a 14-question congressional letter on the waiver passed on 14 March with no public reply.

This is one of four cross-domain signals in today's GIZINT Daily Brief.

GIZINT is a daily intelligence brief covering geopolitics, defence, markets, and security. Every claim is source-attributed. No editorial line. No advocacy. Assessment only.

-Sliced- on March 15th, 2026 at 09:25 UTC »

The entire Russian oil sanction has been a bit of a theater. With European buying refined Russian oil from India while simultaneously asking for stricter Sanctions.

In the grand scheme it’s unlikely the war in Iran would help Russian’s war effort. Iran was Russia’s biggest foreign weapons supplier, especially in the drones space which has become so important I. The Ukraine war. That supply has completely stopped, and will likely take years to fully recover, as Iran would need to rebuild its manufacturing and resupply itself. Some of Iran’s drone manufacturing is in Russia, but it’s quite likely that it is reliant on components that were manufactured in Iran, leading to major supply chain disruptions.

hinterstoisser on March 15th, 2026 at 04:46 UTC »

So supporting Russian war efforts 👏

Mikeynphoto2009 on March 15th, 2026 at 03:57 UTC »

This is a sourced analysis of the three-policy contradiction in US sanctions posture toward Russia during the Iran campaign. OFAC General Licence 134 (12 March) waives Russian oil sanctions for 30 days

because the Hormuz closure removed too much supply from the market, while Russian Krasukha-4 EW systems physically delivered to Iran sustain the warfighting capability the US is trying to destroy. ISW

assesses prior economic pressure forecasts on Moscow are "partially invalidated." Treasury Secretary Bessent's deadline to respond to a 14-question congressional letter on the waiver passed on 14 March

with no public reply. Full source attribution in the article.