Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sign a deal for Gripen fighter jets. Photo / Jonathan Nackstrand, AFP
The United States has slapped major sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies after concluding that President Vladimir Putin was not being “honest and forthright” in Ukraine talks, the US Treasury chief said today.
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 the Treasury was prepared “to take further action if necessary” to support US 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 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 week.
“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 realised 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 today that 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 Zelenskyy.
Trump pushed Zelenskyy 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 yesterday, 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 1%.
Earlier today, Zelenskyy signed a letter of intent with Sweden to acquire 150 Gripen fighter jets, after fatal Russian attacks battered Ukraine’s energy grid and spurred nationwide outages.
The accord inked by Zelenskyy and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson came as the Ukrainian leader visits European capitals to shore up support for Kyiv, as Russian attacks escalate and negotiations stall.
“We are opening an undoubtedly new and very meaningful chapter in our relations,” Zelenskyy said while standing in front of a Gripen, adding the “excellent aircraft” would help to protect Ukraine’s sky from daily Russian air raids.
The letter of intent did not provide dates, but Kristersson said he expected the first planes to be delivered to Ukraine “within three years”. Zelenskyy said he hoped for “first results” as early as 2026.
Zelenskyy launched his string of European visits after Russia’s latest barrage killed seven people – including two children – triggered power outages across Ukraine, and ripped into a kindergarten.
Russia fired 405 drones and 28 missiles at Ukraine between late Tuesday and early Wednesday local time – most of which were intercepted – Ukraine’s Air Force said.
AFP journalists in Kyiv heard the buzzing of Russian drones and explosions throughout the night, and saw a pillar of smoke rising above the capital.
“My hands are still shaking,” Kyiv resident Mariana Gorchenko told AFP.
“I jumped up, glad that my little one wasn’t in the room where the windows were blown out,” she said.
The strikes also damaged a kindergarten in the second-largest city of Kharkiv.
Ksenia Kalmykova, whose child was inside the building during the strike, told AFP that she “pushed the emergency services aside and ran over” after arriving at the site.
“Someone had cuts, someone had something else. Of course, there were hysterics,” she said of the children’s condition, adding “thank God, everyone is alive and well”.
AFP crew saw rescuers extinguishing fire in the charred building whose windows were shattered and facade partly crumbled.
The attacks also targeted the country’s energy infrastructure, leaving thousands without heating and electricity across Ukraine in the cold season, according to the energy ministry.
Russia said it had targeted Ukrainian energy facilities supplying the military, including with hypersonic missiles, in what it called retaliation for strikes on Russian civil infrastructure.
-Agence France-Presse