The European Union and Great Britain announced new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday without waiting for the United States to join them, a day after President Donald Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin without winning a promise for a high fire in Ukraine.
London and Brussels said that their new measures would be concentrated in the “shadow fleet” of Moscow of oil companies and financial companies that have helped him avoid the impact of other sanctions imposed during the war.
“The sanctions are important, and I am grateful to all who make them more tangible for war perpetrators,” wrote Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in Telegram.
But the new measures were released without an immediate announcement of the corresponding steps of Washington, despite the intense public lobbying of the leaders of the European countries so that the Trump administration joined them.
“We have repeatedly made clear that we expect a thing of Russia: a high immediate fire without previous conditions,” said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, apart from a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
As Russia had not accepted the fire, “we will have to react,” he said. “We also hope that our Americans will not tolerate this.”
Russia and Ukraine conducted their first direct conversations in more than three years on Friday at the request of Trump, but they could not agree on a truce after Moscow presented conditions that a member of the Ukrainian delegation called “not so many.”
Ukraine says that he is ready for a high immediate fire proposed by Trump, while Russia says she wants conversations first. Europeans say this is proof that Putin, who began the war invading their neighbor in 2022, is not prepared to finish it.
“Putin is clearly playing for a time, unfortunately, we have to say that Putin is not really interested in peace,” said German defense minister Boris Pistorius.
‘Ball on the kyiv court’
In reaction to the new sanctions, the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova, told journalists that Russia would never bow to what Ultimatums called.
Putin, after his call with Trump, said Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine in a memorandum on a future peace agreement.
“Now, consequently, the ball is on the kyiv court,” said Zakharova.
Europeans have been working hard in public to persuade the Trump administration to join them to impose sanctions.
The leaders of Great Britain, France, Germany and Poland traveled together to kyiv earlier this month and were filmed talking with Trump in speaker with Zelensky.
Several European leaders called Trump again on the eve of Monday’s call with Putin, urging him to join them to impose new sanctions if Russia rejected the fire.
Brussels and London suggested that they could still follow more sanctions, making it clear that they have not hoped to persuade Washington to act.
“Let’s push Vladimir Putin to end his imperialist fantasy,” said France Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barot.
Great Britain Foreign Minister David Lammy said: “Delaying peace efforts will only redouble our resolution to help Ukraine to defend and use our sanctions to restrict the Putin War Machine.”
The EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas said that more sanctions were “in process.”
But it made it clear that the United States action was needed.
“We all agreed and said […] That if they do not agree with the Unconditional fire, as Ukraine has agreed more than 60 days ago, there will be a solid action, ”said Kallas.
“And that is what we want to see of all the parties that have said they will act.”
The latest sanctions are mainly aimed at taking energetic measures in a shipping fleet that Russia uses to export oil, avoiding a price limit of $ 60 per barrel imposed by the G7 group of industrialized countries to limit Russia’s income.
Great Britain and the EU said they would also work to reduce the limit, which imposes much less discount on Russian oil now that global prices have fallen this year.
Trump said Monday that Russia and Ukraine were ready to begin negotiations. Putin said the process would take time.
