Ukraine welcomes Trump’s threat to sanction Russian oil and gas even harder
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US president says no desire to hurt Russia but asks Mr Putin to ‘settle now and stop this ridiculous war’. Ukrainian officials welcomed Donald Trump’s threat to sanction Russia harder, suggesting punitive measures against Russian oil and gas could run down Vladimir Putin’s war machinery.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, sanctions commissioner for president Volodymyr Zelensky, told The Independent there were at least 10 areas Mr Trump can look at to sanction Russia in the coming months. “These can be Russia’s fintech sector, companies involved in the development of e-ruble, central bank digital currency used as an alternative to the SWIFT international payment system Russia is already cut off from, and cryptocurrency payment systems,” he said.
Mr Trump said he had no desire to hurt Russia but asked Mr Putin to “settle now and stop this ridiculous war”. “If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the US, and various other participating countries,” the news US president said on his Truth Social platform.
Mr Trump had promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of assuming the presidency for a second term, though not the Russian invasion. Instead, he came out with a threat to further sanction one of the most heavily sanctioned nations. The US president could follow through by targeting enablers of the “shadow fleet” utilised by Russia to export oil and gas such as insurance, crewing and financial settlement companies that provide any kind of services to it, Mr Vlasiuk suggested.
