For the first time since returning to the White House, US President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on Russia, citing a lack of progress in talks to end Moscow’s conflict with Ukraine. The 19th Russian sanctions package was approved by European Union leaders the same day.
Due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “refusal to end this senseless war” in Ukraine and Moscow’s “lack of serious commitment” to the peace process, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted that the sanctions would affect Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft.
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Bessent said in a statement on Wednesday that today’s actions “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to generate revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy.”
He urged his allies to join us in implementing these sanctions and do so in person.
The Department of the Treasury’s actions block the designated companies’ US assets while preventing Americans from conducting business with them, as well as the sanctions against dozens of Rosneft and Lukoil subsidiaries. Chinese and Indian oil buyers, who were not included in the US sanctions, were not.
Trump said on Wednesday that he would be concerned about Xi Jinping’s meeting with Trump at the 2025 APEC summit in South Korea the following week.
In addition, the US Treasury Department stated that it was ready to take additional steps if Russia continues to host Ukraine for more than three years.
Russia hasn’t yet responded to US measures in the media.
Russia “no place in global markets.”
Rosneft, a Russian company controlled by the Kremlin, is second in terms of revenue behind only Gazprom, but it has been severely impacted by sanctions and declining oil prices in recent years. Its net income for the first half of 2025 decreased by 68 percent year over year as of September.
Russia’s third-largest business, Lukoil, and its largest non-state company, reported a 26.5 percent decline in profits for 2024, citing increased taxation as a result of Moscow’s funding of the country’s war effort in Ukraine.
The United Kingdom put its own sanctions on both businesses in place last week, saying that Russia had no place in global markets and that it would cooperate with Moscow to stop it from funding its conflict in Ukraine.
A quick ceasefire and a stop to the killing are now necessary. The Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies, which finance the Kremlin’s war machine, because President Putin refuses to end this pointless conflict. Treasury is ready to take additional steps if necessary… https://t.co/tbJTyf8x2V
The sanctions come as Trump’s patience with President Putin appears to be waning, with ceasefire talks still dragging along.
Trump claimed to have been unable to attend his scheduled meeting with Putin in Hungary after announcing that he had put off attending on Wednesday.
Trump remarked, “We called off our meeting with President Putin because it just didn’t feel right.” It didn’t seem like we were going to arrive where we needed to be. Therefore, he said, “but we’ll do it in the future.”
The US leader expressed growing frustration with the stalled truce negotiations, but he said he hoped the sanctions wouldn’t need to be in place for a while.
“Every time I speak with Vladimir, we have fruitful exchanges, and then they don’t leave.” They simply don’t leave, he said.
EU raises the temperature.
Washington’s sanctions were made public the day after the EU announced that it had approved its 19th package of sanctions against Moscow for its war against Ukraine, including a ban on Russian imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the EU.
The Danish rotating presidency of the EU announced in a statement that “we are very pleased to announce that the remaining member state has just been notified that it can now lift its reservation on the 19th sanctions package.”
After the EU reached a final text last week, Slovakia had been reluctanced. Robert Fico, the prime minister, was requesting confirmation from the European Commission regarding rising energy costs and acclimatization-related goals.
A Slovak diplomat told the Reuters news agency that new requirements were added to the final communiqué on the new package of sanctions ahead of the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Thursday.
Short-term LNG contracts with Russia will expire after six months, and long-term contracts will expire on January 1, 2027, according to the new package.
Russian diplomats are also subject to new travel restrictions as a result of the sanctions, which add 117 more vessels from Moscow’s shadow fleet of spies who evade sanctions, totaling 558 plus banks in Kazakhstan and Belarus.
The package was praised by Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who also praised the arrangement.
“Package no. He stated on Telegram that “20 is already in the works.”
Source: Aljazeera
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