United States President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House, citing a lack of progress in ceasefire talks to end Moscow’s war on Ukraine. The same day, European Union leaders approved their 19th Russian sanctions package.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the sanctions would target Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “refusal to end this senseless war” in Ukraine and Moscow’s “lack of serious commitment” to the peace process.
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“Today’s actions increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy,” Bessent said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions,” he said.
The measures taken by the Department of the Treasury, which also sanctioned dozens of Rosneft and Lukoil subsidiaries, block the US assets of the designated firms, while preventing Americans from doing business with them. Notably absent from the US sanctions were Chinese and Indian buyers of Russian oil.
Trump said on Wednesday that he would raise concerns about China’s purchases of Russian oil during his sit-down with President Xi Jinping at the 2025 APEC summit in South Korea next week.
The US Treasury Department also said it was prepared to take further action if Russia continues to wage its more-than-three-year war in Ukraine.
Russia has yet to issue a public response to the US measures.
‘No place for Russia in global markets’
Kremlin-controlled Rosneft is Russia’s second-largest company in terms of revenue – behind only gas giant Gazprom – but it has been hit hard in recent years by sanctions and falling oil prices. In September, it reported a 68 percent year-on-year decline in net income for the first half of 2025.
Lukoil, Russia’s third-largest firm and its largest non-state enterprise, also posted a 26.5 percent fall in profits for 2024, citing increased taxation as Moscow funds its war effort in Ukraine.
Last week, the United Kingdom announced its own sanctions against both firms, saying that there was “no place for Russia in global markets” and Britain would take all steps to stop Moscow from funding its war in Ukraine.
Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire. Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary… https://t.co/tbJTyf8x2V
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) October 22, 2025
The sanctions come as Trump’s patience with President Putin appears to be wearing thin, with ceasefire talks continuing to make little progress.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday after announcing he had postponed his planned meeting with Putin in Hungary, Trump said the timing of the meeting felt off.
“We cancelled the meeting with President Putin – it just didn’t feel right to me,” Trump said. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I cancelled it, but we’ll do it in the future,” he said.
The US leader said he hoped the sanctions would not need to be in place for long, but expressed growing frustration with stalled truce negotiations.
“Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” he said.
EU turns up the heat
Washington’s sanctions were announced on the same day as the EU said it had also approved its 19th package of sanctions against Moscow over its war against Ukraine, including an EU ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.
“We are very pleased to announce that we have just been notified by the remaining member state that it’s now able to lift its reservation on the 19th sanctions package,” the Danish rotating presidency of the EU said in a statement.
Slovakia had been holding out after the EU agreed on the final text last week. Prime Minister Robert Fico was seeking assurances from the European Commission on high energy prices and aligning climate targets with the needs of carmakers and heavy industry.
New clauses meeting Slovakia’s demands were added to the final communique on the new package of sanctions in advance of the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Thursday, a Slovak diplomat told the Reuters news agency.
The new package will see short-term LNG contracts with Russia end after six months, and long-term contracts end from January 1, 2027.
The sanctions also add new travel restrictions on Russian diplomats and list 117 more vessels from Moscow’s shadow fleet of clandestine sanctions-evading vessels, bringing the total to 558, as well as banks in Kazakhstan and Belarus.
Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, celebrated the package but said “we are not stopping”.
“Package no. 20 is already in the works,” he wrote on Telegram.
“The logic is simple – less money in Russia means fewer missiles in Ukraine,” he said.
