By Assye Bankole

United States President Donald Trump has executed sanctions on Russia for the first time since His return to the White House, describing absense of progress in ceasefire talks to stop Moscow’s war on Ukraine. Also, the same day, European Union leaders stamped their 19th Russian sanctions package.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that the sanctions would seriously target Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “refusal to end the senseless war” in Ukraine and Moscow’s “lack of serious commitment” to the peace bargain.

“Today’s actions 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,” Bessent revealed in a statement on Wednesday.

“We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions,” he stated.

The measures taken by the Department of the Treasury, which also sanctioned dozens of Rosneft and Lukoil subsidiaries, block the US assets of the designated firms, while denying Americans from doing business with them. Notably absent from the US sanctions were Chinese and Indian buyers of Russian oil.

Trump reteirated on Wednesday that he would raise concerns about China’s purchases of Russian oil during his sit-down with President Xi Jinping at the 2025 APEC summit in South Korea next week.

The US Treasury Department also stated that it was fully ready to take further action if Russia continues to wage its over-three-year war in Ukraine.

Russia has yet to publicly respond to the US measures.

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