U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced latest sanctions Wednesday against Russia’s two biggest oil firms and blasted Moscow’s refusal to finish its “senseless war” in Ukraine as U.S.-led efforts to finish the war floundered and the Ukrainian president sought more foreign military help.
The sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, in addition to dozens of subsidiaries, followed months of bipartisan pressure on President Donald Trump to hit Russia with harder sanctions on its oil industry.
“Now’s the time to stop the killing and for an instantaneous ceasefire,” Bessent said in an announcement. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “refusal to finish this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil firms that fund the Kremlin’s war machine.”
Bessent said the Treasury Department was prepared to take further motion if mandatory to support Trump’s effort to finish the war. “We encourage our allies to affix us in and cling to those sanctions.”
Bessent made the comments as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in Washington for talks with Trump. The military alliance has been coordinating deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, lots of them purchased from america by Canada and European countries.
The announcement got here after Russian drones and missiles blasted sites across Ukraine, killing at the least six people, including a lady and her two young daughters.
The attack got here in waves from Tuesday night into Wednesday and targeted at the least eight Ukrainian cities, in addition to a village within the region of the capital, Kyiv, where a strike set fire to a house during which the mother and her 6-month-old and 12-year-old daughters were staying, regional head Mykola Kalashnyk said.
No less than 29 people, including five children, were wounded in Kyiv, which gave the impression to be the foremost goal, authorities said.
Russian drones also hit a kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, later Wednesday when children were within the constructing, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. One person was killed and 6 were hurt, but no children were physically harmed, he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said lots of the kids were in shock. He said the attack targeted 10 separate regions: Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy and Sumy.
Russia fired 405 strike and decoy drones and 28 missiles, mainly targeting Kyiv, Ukraine’s air force said.
Trump’s efforts to finish the war that began with Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor greater than three years ago have failed to achieve 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.
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Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Trump’s proposal to freeze the conflict where it stands on the front line “was an excellent compromise” — a step that would pave the best way for negotiations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the planned summit requires careful preparation, suggesting that laying the groundwork could possibly be protracted. “Nobody desires to waste time: neither President Trump nor President Putin,” he said.
In what gave the impression to be a public reminder of Russian atomic arsenals, Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces.
Zelenskyy urged the European Union, america and the Group of Seven industrialized nations to force Russia to the negotiating table. Pressure could be applied on Moscow “only through sanctions, long-range (missile) capabilities and coordinated diplomacy amongst all our partners,” he said.
More international economic sanctions on Russia are prone to be discussed Thursday at an EU summit in Brussels. On Friday, a gathering of the Coalition of the Willing — a gaggle of 35 countries that support Ukraine — is to happen in London.
Zelenskyy credited Trump’s remarks that he was considering supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for Putin’s willingness to fulfill. The American president later said he was wary of tapping into the U.S. supply of Tomahawks over concerns about available stocks.
Russia has not made significant progress on the battlefield, where a war of attrition has taken a high toll on Russian infantry and Ukraine is wanting manpower, military analysts say. Either side have invested in long-range strike capabilities to hit rear areas.
Ukraine says it hit key Russian chemical plant
The Ukrainian army’s general staff said its forces struck a chemical plant Tuesday night in Russia’s Bryansk region using British-made air-launched Storm Shadow missiles. The plant is a crucial a part of the Russian military and industrial complex, producing gunpowder, explosives, missile fuel and ammunition, it said.
Russian officials within the region confirmed an attack but didn’t mention the plant.
Ukraine also claimed overnight strikes on the Saransk mechanical plant in Mordovia, Russia, which produces components for ammunition and mines, and the Makhachkala oil refinery within the Dagestan republic of Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed 33 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, including the world around St. Petersburg. Eight airports temporarily suspended flights due to the attacks.
In other developments, Zelenskyy arrived Wednesday in Oslo, Norway, and after that flew to Stockholm, where he and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson signed an agreement exploring the opportunity of Ukraine buying as much as 150 Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets over the subsequent decade or more. Ukraine has already received American-made F-16s and French Mirages.
Moscow’s overnight attack also targeted energy infrastructure and caused rolling blackouts, officials said. Russia has been trying to cripple the country’s power grid before winter sets in.
“We heard a loud explosion after which the glass began to shatter, after which every little thing was caught up in a burst of fireplace. The embers were all over the place,” Olena Biriukova, who lives in a Kyiv apartment constructing, told The Associated Press.
“It was very scary for youths,” she said.
Two people were found dead within the Dnipro district of the Ukrainian capital, where emergency services rescued 10 people after a fireplace attributable to drone debris hit the sixth floor of a 16-story residential constructing, local authorities said.
And in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, emergency services responded after drone debris hit a 17-story apartment block, causing a fireplace on five floors. Fifteen people were rescued, including two children.
Blann reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova, Illia Novikov, Samya Kullab, Andrea Rosa and Yehor Konovalov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.