The US has announced new sanctions targeting Russia’s two largest oil companies in an effort to pressure Moscow to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine.
The announcement came one day after US President Donald Trump said a planned meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Budapest would be shelved indefinitely.
“Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere,” Trump said.
While the economic impact to Russia is likely to be minimal, it represents a major shift in Trump’s foreign policy, having previously said he would not impose sanctions until European nations ceased buying Russian oil. The Kremlin said Russia was “immune” to the sanctions.
The development came just days after the UK sanctioned the same two Russian oil companies. European Union countries have also issued their own new sanctions that ban the import of Russian liquefied natural gas from January 2027.
Trump had repeatedly threatened tougher US measures against Moscow, but has avoided them until now in hopes of brokering a peace deal in the three-and-a-half year long invasion.
His administration has sought to cast the US as a somewhat neutral mediator between the two warring nations, after years of full-throated support for Ukraine from his predecessor, Joe Biden.
But the US president has grown increasingly exasperated with the Kremlin over its failure to move forward with negotiations.
The sanctions are also something Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been urging for months. He said they were a “good signal” from the US, adding that a ceasefire was possible if other nations applied more pressure on Russia.
Credit: bbc.com
