Damascus has agreed to drastically reduce imports of Russian oil as part of its ongoing discussions with the United States on lifting the last major ​sanctions designation on Syria.

Axar.az reports, citing Reuters, that according to three sources familiar with the conversations, such a reduction would represent a major shift in energy policy in Syria, which has become heavily reliant on Russian ‌oil despite a political pivot to the West, and raises the question of how Syria would plug the hole left behind.

It would also be a new way for the U.S. to exert pressure on Russia's economic sway in the country, experts said.

In recent months, senior Syrian officials have told the U.S. they are willing to reduce Russian oil imports as they discussed Washington removing Syria from a decades-old list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to a Syrian source with direct knowledge ​of the conversations, a U.S. official and another source briefed on the matter.

All three sources, speaking anonymously as they were not authorized to brief the press, said the U.S. did not explicitly ​frame the reduction as a pre-condition for lifting the designation.