U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced new sanctions Wednesday against Russia’s two biggest oil companies and blasted Moscow’s refusal to end its “senseless war” in Ukraine as U.S.-led efforts to end the war floundered and the Ukrainian president sought more foreign military help.
The sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as dozens of subsidiaries, followed months of bipartisan pressure on President Donald Trump to hit Russia with harder sanctions on its oil industry.
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” Bessent said in a statement. “Refusing to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bessent stated that the Treasury Department was prepared to support Trump’s effort to end the war with additional measures if required. “We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.” The remarks were made by Bessent while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in Washington to meet with President Trump. The military alliance has been coordinating deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, many of them purchased from the United States by Canada and European countries.
The announcement came after Russian drones and missiles blasted sites across Ukraine, killing at least six people, including a woman and her two young daughters.The attack came in waves from Tuesday night into Wednesday and targeted at least eight Ukrainian cities, as well as a village in the region of the capital, Kyiv, where a strike set fire to a house in which the mother and her 6-month-old and 12-year-old daughters were staying, regional head Mykola Kalashnyk said.
According to authorities, Russian drones also struck a kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, later Wednesday while children were inside, Mayor Ihor Terekhov stated. At least 29 people, including five children, were wounded in Kyiv, which appeared to be the primary target. One person was killed and six were hurt, but no children were physically harmed, he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said many of the children were in shock. He stated that Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy, and Sumy were the ten distinct regions that were the focus of the attack. Russia fired 405 strike and decoy drones and 28 missiles, mainly targeting Kyiv, Ukraine’s air force said.
Peace efforts stall
Trump’s efforts to end the war that started with Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago have failed to gain traction. Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to budge from his conditions for a settlement after Ukraine offered a ceasefire and direct peace talks.Trump said Tuesday that his plan for a swift meeting with Putin was on hold because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.” European leaders accused Putin of stalling.
U.S. sanctions Russia’s largest oil firms after latest attack on Ukraine
