According to a US official and another person familiar with the situation, the administration of US President Donald Trump has prepared additional sanctions that it could use to target key areas of Russia's economy if President Vladimir Putin continues to delay ending Moscow's war in Ukraine. According to two US officials, Washington has held nascent internal discussions about leveraging Russian assets held in the US to support Ukraine's war effort. Additionally, US officials have informed counterparts in Europe that they support the EU using frozen Russian assets to purchase US weapons for Kyiv. After Trump imposed sanctions on Russia on Wednesday for the first time since returning to office in January, it is unclear whether Washington will actually carry out any of those actions in the immediate future. However, it demonstrates that the administration has a well-developed toolkit to further up the ante. Read More: US strike on suspected Venezuelan drug boat kills six in Caribbean
Despite portraying himself as a global peacemaker, Trump has acknowledged that it has been more difficult than he had anticipated to put an end to Russia's more than three-year war in Ukraine. European allies - buffeted by Trump's swings between accommodation and anger toward Putin - hope he keeps upping the pressure on Moscow, and are also mulling major actions of their own.
One senior US official told Reuters that he would like to see European allies make the next big Russia move, which could be additional sanctions or tariffs. Trump is likely to pause for a few weeks to gauge Russia's reaction to the sanctions announcement on Wednesday, according to a separate source with knowledge of internal administration dynamics. Those sanctions took aim at oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft. Oil prices went up by more than $2 as a result of the actions, and major Chinese and Indian buyers of Russian crude looked for other options. Banking sector, oil infrastructure
Some of the additional sanctions the US has prepared are geared toward Russia's banking sector and the infrastructure used to get oil to market, said a US official and another person familiar with the matter.
According to a person with knowledge of those conversations, Ukrainian officials presented the United States with new sanctions activity the previous week. According to two sources, one of the specific suggestions made was to exclude all Russian banks from the dollar-based system that they share with their counterparts in the United States. However, it is unclear how seriously the specific requests from Ukraine are being taken into consideration. The US Senate is also making moves, with some lawmakers renewing a push to get a long-stalled bipartisan sanctions bill over the line.
The person with knowledge of internal administration dynamics said Trump is open to endorsing the package. The source warned, though, that such an endorsement is unlikely this month.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, Kirill Dmitriev, the special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin for investment and economic cooperation, stated that he believes that the United States, Ukraine, and his country are very close to reaching a diplomatic solution to end Russia's war in Ukraine. The spokesperson for the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, Halyna Yusypiuk, acknowledged that the recent decision to impose sanctions was appreciated, but she made no other remarks. In an email, Yusypiuk wrote, "The most humane way to end this war is to dismantle Russia's war machine." A week of whiplash
Trump's decision to hit Russia with sanctions capped a tumultuous week with respect to the administration's Ukraine policy.
The announcement that Trump and Putin would meet in Budapest following their conversation last week caught Ukraine off guard. A day later Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington, where U.S. officials pressed Zelenskiy to give up territory in the Donbas region as part of a lopsided land swap to end the war. Trump concluded the meeting by stating that the conflict ought to be frozen at its frontlines after Zelenskiy retaliated. The following weekend, Russia reiterated previously agreed-upon peace terms in a diplomatic note to Washington. A few days later Trump told reporters the planned meeting with Putin was off because "it just didn't feel right to me."
After arriving in Washington on Friday to meet with US officials, Dmitriev told CNN that a meeting between Trump and Putin had not been postponed, as the US president had claimed, and that the two leaders would probably meet again at a later time. Privately, two US officials disagreed that Trump's failed meeting with Putin plan was probably the result of irrational exuberance. According to these officials, Trump overestimated the extent to which he could leverage momentum from one diplomatic victory to broker another after securing a ceasefire in Gaza. Trump ultimately decided to slap Russia with sanctions during a Wednesday meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a senior White House official said.
Europe is under US stress. According to a US and European official, the US approval process for providing targeting data for long-range Ukrainian strikes in Russia was moved from the Pentagon in Washington to the US European Command in Germany, which is viewed as being more hawkish on Russia by US and European officials. This gave Ukraine an apparent boost from the US behind the scenes. Also Read: US, China race to ease tensions ahead of Trump-Xi Malaysia talks
Trump, on the other hand, has stated that he is not yet prepared to provide Ukraine with the long-range Tomahawk missiles that Kyiv has requested. Europe is also under pressure from the United States to tighten their financial grip on Moscow. Bessent urged the EU to follow suit by announcing the US sanctions. In general, US officials have criticized NATO and the European Union for not acting more decisively against Russia. However, due to the extent to which Lukoil is intertwined with Europe's economy, a senior EU official argued, the EU will find it more challenging than the US to impose full-blocking sanctions on Lukoil. The oil company owns refineries in Bulgaria and Romania and has a robust retail gas station network throughout the continent.
"I think we need to find a way to disengage...before we can fully sanction," the EU official said.
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