EU Imposes New Raft of Sanctions on Russia and Its Oil Trade
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European Union states have approved a fresh sanctions package on Russia over its war against Ukraine including a revised oil price cap, new banking restrictions, and curbs on fuels made from Russian petroleum.
The package, the bloc's 18th since Moscow's full scale invasion, will see about 20 more Russian banks cut off the international payments system SWIFT and face a full transaction ban, as well as restrictions imposed on Russian petroleum refined in third countries. A large oil refinery in India, part-owned by Russia's state-run oil company, Rosneft PJSC, was also blacklisted.
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San Francisco Chronicle
34 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump's friendly-to-frustrated relationship with Putin takes the spotlight at the Alaska summit
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday could be a decisive moment for both the war in Ukraine and the U.S. leader's anomalous relationship with his Russian counterpart. Trump has long boasted that he's gotten along well with Putin and spoken admiringly of him, even praising him as 'pretty smart' for invading Ukraine. But in recent months, he's expressed frustrations with Putin and threatened more sanctions on his country. At the same time, Trump has offered conflicting messages about his expectations for the summit. He has called it 'really a feel-out meeting' to gauge Putin's openness to a ceasefire but also warned of 'very severe consequences' if Putin doesn't agree to end the war. For Putin, Friday's meeting is a chance to repair his relationship with Trump and unlace the West's isolation of his country following its invasion of Ukraine 3 1/2 years ago. He's been open about his desire to rebuild U.S.-Russia relations now that Trump is back in the White House. The White House has dismissed any suggestion that Trump's agreeing to sit down with Putin is a win for the Russian leader. But critics have suggested that the meeting gives Putin an opportunity to get in Trump's ear to the detriment of Ukraine, whose leader was excluded from the summit. 'I think this is a colossal mistake. You don't need to invite Putin onto U.S. soil to hear what we already know he wants," said Ian Kelly, a retired career foreign service officer who served as the U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administrations. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a longtime Russia hawk and close ally of Trump's, expressed optimism for the summit. 'I have every confidence in the world that the President is going to go to meet Putin from a position of strength, that he's going to look out for Europe and Ukrainian needs to end this war honorably,' Graham wrote on social media. A look back at the ups and downs of Trump and Putin's relationship: Russia questions during the 2016 campaign Months before he was first elected president, Trump cast doubt on findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian government hackers had stolen emails from Democrats, including his opponent Hillary Clinton, and released them in an effort to hurt her campaign and boost Trump's. In one 2016 appearance, he shockingly called on Russian hackers to find emails that Clinton had reportedly deleted. 'Russia, if you're listening,' Trump said, 'I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.' Questions about his connections to Russia dogged much of his first term, touching off investigations by the Justice Department and Congress and leading to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who secured multiple convictions against Trump aides and allies but did not establish proof of a criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign. These days, Trump describes the Russia investigation as an affinity he and Putin shared. 'Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,' Trump said earlier this year. 'He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia, ever hear of that deal?' Putin in 2019 mocked the investigation and its ultimate findings, saying, "A mountain gave birth to a mouse.' 'He just said it's not Russia' Trump met with Putin six times during his first term, including a 2018 summit in Helsinki, when Trump stunned the world by appearing to side with an American adversary on the question of whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election. 'I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today," Trump said. 'He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be." Facing intense blowback, Trump tried to walk back the comment a full 24 hours later. But he raised doubt on that reversal by saying other countries could have also interfered. Putin referred to Helsinki summit as 'the beginning of the path' back from Western efforts to isolate Russia. He also made clear that he had wanted Trump to win in 2016. 'Yes, I wanted him to win because he spoke of normalization of Russian-U.S. ties,' Putin said. 'Isn't it natural to feel sympathy to a person who wanted to develop relations with our country?" Trump calls Putin 'pretty smart' after invasion of Ukraine The two leaders kept up their friendly relationship after Trump left the White House under protest in 2021. After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Trump described the Russian leader in positive terms. 'I mean, he's taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I'd say that's pretty smart,' Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort. In a radio interview that week, he suggested that Putin was going into Ukraine to 'be a peacekeeper.' Trump repeatedly said the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he had been in the White House — a claim Putin endorsed while lending his support to Trump's false claims of election fraud. 'I couldn't disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn't stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided,' he said. Trump also repeatedly boasted that he could have the fighting 'settled' within 24 hours. Through much of his campaign, Trump criticized U.S. support for Ukraine and derided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a 'salesman' for persuading Washington to provide weapons and funding to his country. Revisiting the relationship Once he became president, Trump stopped claiming he'd solve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. In March, he said he was "being a little bit sarcastic' when he said that. Since the early days of Trump's second term, Putin has pushed for a summit while trying to pivot from the Ukrainian conflict by emphasizing the prospect of launching joint U.S.-Russian economic projects, among other issues. 'We'd better meet and have a calm conversation on all issues of interest to both the United States and Russia based on today's realities,' Putin said in January. In February, things looked favorable for Putin when Trump had a blowup with Zelenskyy at the White House, berating him as 'disrespectful." In late March, Trump still spoke of trusting Putin when it came to hopes for a ceasefire, saying, 'I don't think he's going to go back on his word." But a month later, as Russian strikes escalated, Trump posted a public and personal plea on his social media account: 'Vladimir, STOP!' He began voicing more frustration with the Russian leader, saying he was 'Just tapping me along.' In May, he wrote on social media that Putin 'has gone absolutely CRAZY!' Earlier this month, Trump ordered the repositioning of two U.S. nuclear submarines 'based on the highly provocative statements' of the country's former president, Dmitry Medvedev. Trump's vocal protests about Putin have tempered somewhat since he announced their meeting, but so have his predictions for what he might accomplish. Speaking to reporters Monday, Trump described their upcoming summit not as the occasion in which he'd finally get the conflict 'settled' but instead as 'really a feel-out meeting, a little bit.' 'I think it'll be good,' Trump said. 'But it might be bad.'
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Here's what Putin really wants from Trump – and it's not peace in Ukraine
Alaska is unlikely to have been on many peoples' bingo cards as the venue for a key summit between the leaders of the United States and Russia. Yet America's biggest, remotest state is where Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are now set to meet for one of the most potentially consequential encounters of their presidencies. That's certainly the view from Moscow, where pro-Kremlin propagandists are already flushed with anticipation at the benefits this much-anticipated face-to-face meeting will deliver. Or, more specifically, will deliver for Putin. Firstly, the fact a summit with the US president is being held at all is a massive win for the Kremlin. 'No one is talking about Russia's international isolation anymore, or about our strategic defeat,' wrote Alexander Kots, a prominent pro-Kremlin military blogger on his popular social media channel. He added that the Alaska meeting had 'every chance to become historic.' He may be right. A presidential summit allows Putin to be seen back at the top table of international diplomacy, while thumbing his nose at critics and nations who want him shunned if not arrested on charges of war crimes in Ukraine. And a summit in the US state of Alaska, of all places, is red meat to resurgent Russian nationalists who still bluster about the territory being rightfully theirs. Just across the Bering Strait from the Chukotka region in the Russian Far East, Alaska was once a remote possession of the Russian Empire before being sold to the United States in 1867 for what was, even then, a paltry sum of $7.2 million, about 2 cents an acre. The idea that Moscow got a raw deal still lingers and a visit to 'our Alaska,' as one prominent Russian state TV host dubbed it, bolsters Putin's nationalist credentials. Video clips of Trump misspeaking at a White House news conference ahead of the summit, saying he was going to 'Russia' to meet Putin, have also been trending on Russian social media with captions saying the US president had finally 'admitted it is ours.' For the rest of the world, though, the sole focus of this presidential summit is the war in Ukraine and whether Russia is prepared to make any concessions to end it. The White House has said Trump expects to focus squarely on ending the war in Ukraine, leaving other issues Moscow has said could be up for discussion for another time. On Wednesday, Trump promised 'very severe consequences' if Putin doesn't agree to end his war, following a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders. But so far there's been little sign of real compromise from the Kremlin, which regards itself as having the upper hand on the grinding Ukrainian battlefield. As recently as last month, on a phone call with Trump, Putin reportedly reiterated that Russia would 'continue to pursue its goals to address the root causes' of the conflict in Ukraine – these 'root causes' having previously included long-held Russian grievances that include Ukraine's existence as a sovereign state, and NATO's eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War. More likely, Putin is up to something else. Details have emerged of a Russian peace offer reportedly made to US presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, before the Alaska summit was hastily arranged. In essence, the proposals involve Kyiv surrendering territory in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, in exchange for a ceasefire, an idea the Ukrainian leadership has firmly ruled out. 'I am not going to surrender my country because I have no right to do so,' said Zelensky ahead of the summit, which he was not invited to. 'If we leave Donbas today, our fortifications, our terrain, the heights we control, we will clearly open a bridgehead for the preparation of a Russian offensive.' But Trump, who is expected to discuss the idea with Putin in Alaska, appears to like the sound of a land-for-peace deal, even one so unpalatable to Ukraine and its European partners. That clear difference of opinion represents an opportunity for Putin to portray the Ukrainians and the Europeans – not Russia – as the real obstacle to peace, potentially undermining Trump's already shaky support for the Ukrainian war effort. Trump has lost patience with Zelensky before, the Kremlin will have noted, and may do so again. If he were to cut off the remaining US military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv, Ukraine would struggle to continue its fight even with bolstered European support. Ahead of the summit, the White House appeared to downplay expectations of a peace deal, characterizing the high-stakes meeting as a 'listening exercise.' That may suit Putin just fine. It was, after all, the Kremlin who solicited the summit, according to the White House – possibly as a way of heading off a threat of US tariffs and secondary sanctions that Trump said would kick in last week. Keeping Trump talking may be an effective way of pushing back that deadline indefinitely. More broadly, Putin sees a unique opportunity with Trump to fundamentally reset relations with Washington, and separate Russian ties with the US from the fate of Ukraine, a scenario that would also divide the Western allies. For months, Kremlin officials have been talking up possibilities for economic, technological and space cooperation with the US, as well as lucrative deals on infrastructure and energy in the Arctic and elsewhere. The fact the Kremlin's top economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev – a key interlocutor with the Trump administration – is part of the Russian delegation to Alaska suggests that more talk of US-Russian deal-making will be on the agenda. And, if Putin gets his way in this summit, the 'Ukraine question' may find itself relegated to just one of many talking points between the powerful leaders of two great powers – and not even the most pressing one.
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
The Kremlin's recruiters are crushing their targets and might get their 2025 goals bumped up, Ukraine spy chief says
The Kremlin's military recruitment is doing so well this year that it may increase its annual target again, said the deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence. "In general, the Russian Federation's recruitment plans are being fulfilled by at least 105 to 110% each month," said Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitsky, in an interview with Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne that was published on Tuesday. Skibitsky said Russia has likely recruited two-thirds of the 343,000 new soldiers it aims to field in 2025, putting it on track to hit its annual goal. Russia's expanded military recruitment, buoyed by large sign-up bonuses and other perks for families of injured or killed soldiers, has been a driving force for Moscow's ability to sustain its war in Ukraine. Sign-up bonuses vary depending on the region in Russia, with local governments in areas such as Moscow and St. Petersburg offering higher payouts. The baseline bonus is set at 400,000 rubles, according to a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the summer of 2024. "For an average citizen of the Russian Federation, a simple worker, this is a lot of money. In the case of the first contract, we are talking about an average of 1.5-2 million Russian rubles," Skibitsky said. 2 million rubles is worth roughly $25,000. Russia's federal statistics service said in its latest update that the average wage in the country was about $1,200 a month in February. Skibitsky said the accelerated recruitment rate means Russia can send up to 35,000 fresh troops a month to the front — critical to the Kremlin's strategy of repeatedly launching costly ground assaults that wear down Ukrainian defenses. Ukraine also has intelligence that the Kremlin plans to follow up on its success this year by increasing recruitment goals by 15 to 17%, Skibitsky added. "But we do not yet have confirmation whether this decision has come into effect," the spy chief said, without providing further detail about the intelligence. His latest comments come after Ukrainian intelligence said in March that Russia had pushed its recruitment goal for 2024 from 380,000 troops to 430,000. The Kremlin's recruitment drive has also been buttressed by changes in Russia's legal system that allow prisoners or people with charges filed against them to avoid trial by joining the military. Skibitsky said that about 25% of Russia's new recruits are those who committed crimes or are under investigation. Moscow spent an estimated $25.68 billion on salaries, bonuses, and perks for war personnel in the first half of 2025, according to an analysis in July by Re:Russia, an analytics platform run by exiled Russian academics. The country is expected to spend 6.3% of its GDP on defense this year, a record high since the Soviet Union fell in 1991. The Kremlin's recruitment is so extensive that the sheer number of people joining the military industry has reportedly driven up labor costs for civilian industries, particularly in service sectors. On the other hand, Kyiv has struggled for years to replenish and maintain its troop numbers on the front lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Russian forces outnumber his country's soldiers by three to one.
