Washington (AFP) – President Donald Trump has slapped major sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies after concluding that Vladimir Putin was not being “honest and forthright” in Ukraine talks, the US treasury chief said Wednesday. The sanctions came a day after a planned Trump-Putin summit in Budapest was shelved, with Washington expressing its disappointment at the lack of progress in ceasefire negotiations with Moscow.
“Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement announcing the sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil. He warned that Treasury was prepared “to take further action if necessary” to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war. Speaking to Fox Business ahead of the official announcement, Bessent said the move was “one of the largest sanctions that we have done against the Russian Federation.”
Trump has held off on new sanctions for months, saying he hoped to persuade Russian President Putin to make peace despite growing frustration with the Kremlin leader. But the 79-year-old Republican’s patience apparently ran out in the space of the six days since he spoke to Putin by telephone last Thursday. “President Putin has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner, as we’d hoped,” Bessent told Fox Business. Bessent said that when the two leaders met in Alaska in August, “President Trump walked away when he realized that things were not moving forward.”
“There have been behind-the-scenes talks, but I believe that the president is disappointed at where we are in these talks,” he added. The European Union said Wednesday it was also imposing new sanctions on Russia. They include a ban on importing liquefied natural gas from Russia by 2027, the blacklisting of oil tankers used by Moscow, and travel curbs on Russian diplomats.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has repeatedly dangled the threat of sanctions against Russia without pulling the trigger as he seeks an elusive end to Russia’s three-and-a-half-year war. Trump had held out hope of a ceasefire deal last week after speaking to Putin, saying that the two leaders had agreed to meet in Budapest within two weeks.
Repeating a pattern of pivoting between Moscow and Kyiv, the US president at the same time stepped up the pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump pushed Zelensky to give up territory, a Kyiv official told AFP, and turned down his plea for long-range Tomahawk missiles to strike deep into Russia. But Trump shifted once again on Tuesday, saying that he did not want to have a “wasted meeting,” ending the immediate prospect of a Putin summit.
News of the sanctions drove oil prices higher in after-hours trading, with the benchmark WTI and Brent both gaining more than one percent.
© 2024 AFP
