WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday that the US was rolling out some of its heaviest sanctions yet against Russia — after plans for a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin foundered earlier this week.
Moscow’s two largest energy companies — Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company and Lukoil OAO — were hit by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control with the crippling economic penalties to push for an end to the more than three-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate cease-fire,” Bessent said in a statement, noting the designated firms and their dozens of subsidiaries help “fund the Kremlin’s war machine.”
China and India remain the largest purchasers of Russian oil, though the European Union was still taking in roughly 6% of Moscow’s crude oil exports as of June, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
France, Belgium and Spain accounted for around 85% of all Russian liquid natural gas (LNG) imports as of last year, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
“I believe that the president is disappointed,” Bessent told Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” of Trump’s reaction to the scrapped talks, which had been scheduled to take place in Budapest, Hungary.
“President Putin has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner,” added the Treasury secretary. “Either this evening or first thing tomorrow morning we’re going to be announcing a substantial increase in Russia’s sanctions.”
The Cabinet official referred to the action as “one of the largest sanctions we have done against the Russian Federation,” while noting there would not be secondary tariffs slapped on nations still buying up Russian oil.
“These are going to be substantial and powerful,” Bessent went on, noting that European nations and others still purchasing energy from Moscow should join the US in the economic penalties and saying that he had “encouraged” leaders of G7 nations to levy similar punishment.
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