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Lukoil’s foreign asset sale becomes part of U.S.–Russia talks on ending Ukraine war, NYT reports

Source: The New York Times

The sale of Lukoil’s foreign assets has become part of Russia–U.S. talks on ending the Russia–Ukraine war, sources told The New York Times.

Vladimir Putin personally raised the issue of selling Lukoil’s assets on September 5 during talks with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoys handling negotiations over the the Russia–Ukraine war, the NYT said.

Putin proposed seeing the deal through to completion, saying it would confirm that Russians and Americans can do business together, one of the newspaper’s sources said.

The Financial Times reported that a group of investors seeking to buy Lukoil’s foreign assets includes former Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly, Sheikh Tahnoon, brother of the president of the UAE, and the Qatari Al-Khayyat family. All of them have ties to the Trump and Witkoff families.

Boehly donated $2 million to Trump’s political projects. The Al-Khayyat brothers are building a resort in Albania with Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter. Sheikh Tahnoon has invested in projects involving Kushner, Witkoff, and Trump’s sons.

Kushner and Witkoff’s ties to the parties involved in the Lukoil deal raise questions about a conflict of interest and clearly show why Trump’s friends and family members should not serve as his foreign policy advisers, Hui Chen, a former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor, told the NYT.

The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Lukoil in the fall of 2025. The company then began looking for a buyer for its foreign assets, worth about $20 billion. It remains unclear how much the assets might ultimately sell for.

The Russia-linked trading company Gunvor was the first to try to acquire Lukoil’s foreign business, but U.S. authorities called it a “puppet” of the Kremlin and refused to approve the deal. The American investment fund Carlyle became another contender, but the U.S. Treasury Department has yet to approve its application either.

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