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President Donald Trump has imposed major new sanctions on Russia after canceling a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in a sign he is losing patience with the ongoing conflict.
'These are tremendous sanctions,' the president said in the Oval Office on Wednesday during a meeting with NATO General Secretary Marke Rutte.
The levies specifically target two of Russia's largest oil companies, as the White House referred to them as the primary funders of 'the Kremlin's war machine.'
The sanctions apply to Russia's Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft) and Lukoil OAO (Lukoil) and it's subsidiaries.
'Those are against their two big oil companies, and we hope that they won't be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled,' Trump said.
When announcing the extraordinary new measures, the Trump administration cited Putin's 'lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine.'
Seven people were killed in Russian strikes on Ukraine overnight. Two of the victims were children. Trump had earlier canceled his planned meeting with Putin next week in Budapest.
The sanctions will cut the Russian firms' access to American banks and financial institutions, which effectively blocks them from accessing and using US dollars.
Trump is deploying stronger action against Russia to pressure them to the negotiating table as he advocates to end the war in Ukraine.
'Hopefully he'll become reasonable and hopefully Zelensky will be reasonable too,' he said.
Trump signaled he was frustrated with the lack of progress in his communications with Putin.
'Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations. And then they don't go anywhere,' he said.
Trump said he was optimistic that the end of the war in Ukraine could be reached, but for now any meeting with Putin would be postponed.
'It didn't feel right to me but we'll do it in the future,' he said.
Trump's sanctions have been praised internationally as the global community seeks to ramp up pressure on Putin to end the war.
Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze described them as 'relatively big' and said: 'Both are systemic for Russia's oil industry. And the very step matters, and the obvious coordination with European allies.'
The European Union on Wednesday announced its own new sanctions, banning the importation of liquefied natural gas.
'It's a very significant action because it's the first use of sanctions under the Trump administration and hits Russia where they are most vulnerable, in terms of oil revenues,' Joe Biden's former Russia adviser Michael Carpenter said.
The move marked a sharp turnaround for the White House, which has veered between pressuring Moscow and taking a more conciliatory approach aimed at securing peace in Ukraine.
'Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,' U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
'Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump's effort to end yet another war.'
For months, Trump has resisted pressure from U.S. lawmakers to impose energy sanctions, hoping that Putin would agree to end the fighting. But with no end in sight, he said he felt it was time.
The U.S. president said, however, that he was still not ready to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, which Kyiv has requested.
Earlier this week, the president indicated he might be willing to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine and invited President Volodymyr Zelensky to meet with him at the White House on Monday.
'They're highly complex. So the only way a Tomahawk is going to be shot is if we shot it and we're not going to do that,' Trump said of his turnaround.
He urged both Zelensky and Putin to work for peace and promised to make it a priority for his administration.
'A lot of people are dying, you know, they're not Americans, but they're people. They're souls and they're dying by the thousands. Worst since World War II. And we really should stop it,' he said.
On Wednesday evening, the president also denounced a story from The Wall Street Journal reporting that the United States had approved the use of long range missiles into Russia as 'fake news'.
'The U.S. has nothing to do with those missiles, wherever they may come from, or what Ukraine does with them!' he wrote on social media.
The president first confirmed Tuesday that the planned meeting with Putin was canceled after Putin reportedly refused to compromise on his conditions to end the war.
'I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to have a waste of time,' he told reporters in the Oval Office.