WASHINGTON — The US rolled out some of its heaviest sanctions yet against Russia Wednesday after plans for a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin foundered earlier this week.
Moscow’s two largest energy companies — Rosneft and Lukoil — were hit by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control with the crippling economic penalties to push for an end to the more than three-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
“I just felt it was time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office following a meeting with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte. “We waited a long time.”
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate cease-fire,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement announcing the sanctions, noting the two firms and their dozens of subsidiaries help “fund the Kremlin’s war machine.”
“These are tremendous sanctions,” the president added. “We hope that they won’t be on for long; we hope that the war will be settled.”
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Rutte added that the move was “all about changing the calculus, making sure that Putin understands” that a cease-fire in the conflict “has to be step one now.”
China and India remain the largest purchasers of Russian oil, though the European Union was still taking in roughly 6% of Moscow’s crude oil exports as of June, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
France, Belgium and Spain accounted for around 85% of all Russian liquid natural gas (LNG) imports as of last year, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
The designation will block “all property and interests” of the Russian energy companies, as well as any entities that are majority-owned by them.
Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Olha Stefanishyna celebrated the sanctions in a statement, noting they marked the first time since Moscow’s invasion in February 2022 that the US “decided to impose full blocking sanctions against Russian energy companies.”
“This came after numerous attempts to give Russia the opportunity to begin genuine negotiations to end the war,” Stefanishyna said. “This decision is fully consistent with Ukraine’s longstanding position, which has repeatedly emphasized that peace is only possible through strength and by exerting pressure on the aggressor using all available international instruments.”
Trump also told reporters that the Russia-Ukraine war has “turned out to be tougher than the Middle East.”
“The Middle East was supposed to be the tough one, and we’ve solved that puzzle but this one will get solved also,” he promised, adding that he canceled plans to speak with Putin in Budapest, Hungary because “it didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get.”
“I believe that the president is disappointed,” Bessent told Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” of Trump’s reaction to the scrapped talks, adding that Putin “has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner.”
Bessent referred to Wednesday’s action as “one of the largest sanctions we have done against the Russian Federation,” while noting there would not be secondary tariffs slapped on nations still buying up Russian oil.
“These are going to be substantial and powerful,” Bessent went on, noting that European nations and others still purchasing energy from Moscow should join the US in the economic penalties and saying that he had “encouraged” leaders of G7 nations to levy similar punishment.
France, Belgium and Spain accounted for around 85% of all Russian liquid natural gas (LNG) imports as of last year, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
“This came after numerous attempts to give Russia the opportunity to begin genuine negotiations to end the war,” Stefanishyna said. “This decision is fully consistent with Ukraine’s longstanding position, which has repeatedly emphasized that peace is only possible through strength and by exerting pressure on the aggressor using all available international instruments.”
Trump also told reporters that the Russia-Ukraine war has “turned out to be tougher than the Middle East.”
