President Vladimir Putin’s team, in high-level discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska, was compelled to pay for jet fuel with cash for their return journey, even though the U.S. had temporarily relaxed sanctions to facilitate the meeting, as reported by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to NBC.

NBC’s estimates suggest that fueling a single long-distance aircraft could incur costs around $85,000 based on current jet fuel prices.

Given that the Russian president generally travels with a contingent of three planes, the overall expenses could easily soar into the hundreds of thousands.

“When the Russians arrived in Alaska … they had to pay cash for refueling their aircraft because they are unable to utilize our banking system,” Rubio explained to NBC. “They encounter repercussions on a daily basis.”

However, Rubio pointed out that these sanctions have not changed the course of the conflict in Ukraine.

“That doesn’t imply the sanctions were unwarranted; it simply indicates that they haven’t influenced the outcome,” he remarked.

Additionally, members of the Russian delegation and accompanying journalists reported difficulties using local mobile services and bank cards during their stay in the U.S.

To facilitate the summit between Trump and Putin in Anchorage on August 15, U.S. authorities temporarily lifted travel restrictions on sanctioned Russian officials until August 20.

Earlier in the year, Washington granted a similar exception for Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s special economic envoy, who visited the U.S. capital to meet with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in April despite being on the sanctions list.