[MARKET ANALYSIS] Crude futures fall as Trump waives Russian energy sanctions, while Russia-Ukraine strikes continue

Sanctions relief on Russian energy, even partial waiver language, is a bearish supply-side signal for crude: past episodes of de-escalation around the conflict have unwound the war risk premium through the front of the curve and the WTI-Brent spread, with Brent typically more sensitive given its cleaner read on European and Russian seaborne flows. The pattern this session follows the established rule for these episodes, where headline-driven de-escalation trades fade quickly when kinetic activity continues, and here both sides are still targeting energy infrastructure, which caps the downside conviction. The case to keep separate is the physical versus the financial: waivers signal future supply availability, but continued strikes on production and export assets act against it, and the tanker incidents in the Strait of Hormuz add a second, orthogonal supply-risk thread via freight and insurance costs. TTF trading higher while crude softens is itself a familiar divergence, since the European gas balance prices its own factors, storage draw, Norwegian flows and LNG competition, rather than following oil. Worth watching are the terms and scope of any formal relief, follow-through from the proposed leader meetings, and whether strikes on refining and export capacity show up in loadings data rather than just headlines.