U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as they meet to barter for an finish to the warfare in Ukraine, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S., August 15, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
There was a stony silence from Moscow a day after the U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and slapped punishing sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil corporations.
Simply days after a “very productive” cellphone name between the 2 leaders — through which they agreed to fulfill in Hungary and after which the U.S. president appeared to take Russia’s aspect relating to a potential peace take care of Ukraine — Trump modified tack on Wednesday, voicing his frustration with Moscow.
“We canceled the assembly with President Putin. It simply, it did not really feel proper to fulfill. It did not really feel like we had been going to get to the place we now have to get. So I canceled it, however we’ll do it sooner or later,” Trump stated Wednesday.
“Each time I converse to Vladimir, I’ve good conversations after which they do not go wherever. They only do not go wherever,” Trump added, flanked by NATO Secretary-Common Mark Rutte, with whom he had mentioned peace proposals for Ukraine.
Requested why he had chosen to impose a bundle of sanctions on oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft at that second, Trump stated, “I simply felt it was time, we have waited a very long time.”
Stony silence
Trump’s feedback on Putin had been notably extensively absent from pro-Kremlin state media shops reminiscent of TASS, Radio Sputnik and RIA Novosti‘s information protection on Thursday, with barely a point out of the criticism or canceled assembly.
Only a day earlier than, Russian state media — primarily, the mouthpiece of the Kremlin — had been bullish that deliberate talks between Putin and Trump that had been on account of be held in Hungary, however which had been postponed by the White Home, would go forward.
The Kremlin and varied senior Russian officers had blamed “pretend information” for undermining the Trump-Putin summit however the White Home appeared to have put the talks on maintain after Russia reiterated its place that it didn’t help a direct ceasefire in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a gathering of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin with Laos’ President Thongloun Sisoulith in Moscow, Russia, Might 9, 2024.
Alexei Maishev | Through Reuters
Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has not but publicly commented on the canceled assembly, the sanctions, or the prospect of Trump-Putin talks being held in future. CNBC has contacted the Kremlin for remark.
Russia’s international ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated Thursday that that the ministry was able to “proceed contacts” with the U.S. State Division however stated its targets in Ukraine “stay unchanged,” in feedback translated by NBC Information. The most recent sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil had been counterproductive, she added, to discovering a peaceable resolution to the warfare.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a widely known anti-West hawk, slammed Trump’s cancellation of the Budapest summit, commenting on Telegram Thursday that the “U.S. is our adversary and their talkative ‘peacekeeper’ [Trump] has now absolutely launched into the warpath in opposition to Russia.”
“Now Trump has absolutely aligned himself with an insane Europe,” Medvedev posted, in feedback translated by Google.
Sanctions stress
The sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, and dozens of subsidiaries, are geared toward pressuring Moscow, which has funded its three and a half yr warfare in Ukraine utilizing revenues derived from world oil gross sales, to conform to a ceasefire, the U.S. Treasury stated.
The Treasury Division stated the brand new sanctions will hurt the Kremlin’s capability to lift income to fund its warfare in opposition to Ukraine.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated his division “is ready to take additional motion if essential to help President Trump’s effort to finish yet one more warfare,” Bessent stated. “We encourage our allies to affix us in and cling to those sanctions.”
The EU on Thursday additionally launched a contemporary rounds of sanctions in opposition to Russia. The bundle of measures, which member states authorised on Wednesday night, features a ban on Russian liquefied pure gasoline (LNG) imports.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s excessive consultant for international affairs and safety coverage, and vp of the European Fee, advised CNBC Thursday that the brand new sanctions are “a very good sign of power that the U.S. is placing sanctions on large Russian oil corporations. It is actually depriving Russia of the means to fund this warfare. It is necessary to finish this warfare.”