The Yermak-McFaul International Working Group on Sanctions against Russia proposes to stop direct supplies of Russian gas to the European Union (EU), with the exception of transit through Ukraine, create a gas storage buffer in Ukraine and impose full sanctions against Russian oil and gas companies.

This follows from the Action Plan 2.0 to strengthen sanctions against the Russian Federation, posted on the website of Stanford University.

"End the direct supply of Russian gas to the European Union (EU), except for through Ukraine... this measure would end Russia's use of the Turkstream natural gas pipeline for gas deliveries to the EU. Furthermore, we propose sanctions that would ban imports of Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe," the report notes.

"We urge Ukraine's partners in East Asia (e.g., Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan), which have reduced purchases of Russian energy substantially, to follow Europe's lead and stop buying Russian energy," the authors note.

They also propose to impose full sanctions on all Russian oil and gas companies – including Gazprom, Gazpromneft, Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz, Lukoil, Tatneft, Transneft, Sibur, Zarubezhneft, and Novatek – with limited exemptions for oil price cap compliant transactions.

The document also proposes to impose full sanctions against Gazprombank, which would have previously been exempted from sanctions to facilitate energy trading. "Sanctions coalition governments should impose a 100% tax on any benefit derived by one of their oil and gas companies – such as Total and SLB – from operations in Russia or Belarus since February 24, 2022, with any proceeds earmarked to support Ukrainian reconstruction," the text says.

"We call for all countries in the coalition to sanction Rosatom. As we first recommended in our Working Group Paper No. 8,1 we propose a warning package of measures, including a ban on Russian uranium, as well as personal sanctions on the management of Rosatom and Rosatom officials active in Ukraine," the authors note.