Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump sanctions Russian oil giants over Putin’s ‘lack of commitment to peace’
Donald Trump has unleashed new sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies, the first such measures since he began his second term as US president.
The Treasury Department said it was sanctioning Rosneft and Lukoil in response to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “refusal to end this senseless war”.
In a statement, the department lashed out at Moscow’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.
It said the sanctions would “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy”.
The decision came after Trump had cancelled a planned meeting with Putin, telling reporters on Wednesday that it “just didn’t feel right to me”. “Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” he said.
EU commission president Ursula Von der Leyen also said she had spoken to US treasury secretary Scott Bessent about “Russia’s lack of commitment to the peace process”.
