MOSCOW: US President Donald Trump hit Russia's two biggest oil companies with sanctions in his latest sharp policy shift on Moscow's war in Ukraine, prompting global oil prices to rise by 3% on Thursday and India to consider cutting Russian imports.
The sanctions, unveiled by the US Treasury, target oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil, and mark a dramatic U-turn by Trump, who said only last week that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would hold a summit in Budapest to try to end the war in Ukraine.
But Trump said on Wednesday the planned summit was off because he did not believe it would achieve the outcome he wanted and complained that his many "good conversations" with Putin did not "go anywhere."
“We cancelled the meeting with President Putin — it just didn’t feel right to me,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I cancelled it, but we’ll do it in the future.”
Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, made clear Washington stood ready to take further action and was targeting Russia's ability to fund a war it launched in February 2022.
"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," Bessent said.
Russia's Foreign Ministry called the US sanctions "counterproductive" and said its goals in Ukraine remained unchanged.
Oil and gas revenue, down 21% year-on-year, accounts for around one quarter of Russia's budget and is the most important source of cash for Moscow's war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked the US for the new sanctions, saying they were "very important" but that more pressure was needed on Moscow.
Oil prices jumped more than 3% amid worries the sanctions would disrupt global supply. Indian refiners plan to sharply curtail Russian oil imports to comply with US sanctions. — Reuters
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