The United States has slapped new sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies and condemned Moscow’s refusal to end its ‘senseless war’.
Sanctions on both Rosneft and Lukoil, along with dozens of its subsidiaries, were enacted after months of bipartisan pressure on President Donald Trump to hit Russia with harder sanctions.
‘Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,’ US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said.
In addition to the immediate sanctions, the Treasury Department said it’s prepared to take further action to deter Putin’s deadly strikes, which this week killed a mum and her baby daughters.
What are Trump’s new sanctions on Russia, and why now?
New sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil are a brutal blow to two major oil companies, which help propel Russia’s war machine to keep moving.
Sky News analysed: ‘Oil is Russia’s bloodstream, and the Trump Treasury just cut off the blood flow.’
The price of oil in Russia has already risen by 3.4% after the new sanctions were amount.
The latest sanctions show how frustrated Trump is becoming with Putin, who cancelled a prospective meeting in Budapest, which would have focused on how to get a lasting peace in Ukraine.
How effective could they be?
Potentially, very.
Russia is already feeling the pressure, as prices of crude oil are increasing after hitting a record five-month low earlier this week.
But Thomas Graham, a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, pointed out to The Guardian: ‘If the White House thinks this is going to lead to radical change in the Kremlin’s conduct or Putin’s policy, they’re deluding themselves.
‘The Kremlin has been very good at circumventing these kinds of sanctions.’
What has Trump said about them?
‘Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere,’ Trump told reporters this week.
He added: ‘We hope that they [the sanctions] won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.’
How has Russia reacted?
So far, very quietly.
On major Russian news websites, not much has been published about the sanctions.
TASS, a Russian news agency, focused its coverage on an EU summit which could seize frozen Russian assets.
But the European Union has also agreed on a new raft of sanctions against Russia, targeting its shadow fleet of oil tankers and banning its imports of liquefied natural gas, the Danish EU presidency announced.
‘Today is a good day for Europe and Ukraine,’ Danish foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said, as EU leaders gather for a summit in Brussels.
He said that the new sanctions ‘will introduce new and comprehensive measures on oil and gas, the shadow fleet and Russia’s financial sector’.
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