The president of the United States, Donald Trump, raised the possibility of imposing American sanctions on a large scale to Russia on Friday, days after stopping military aid and intelligence support to Ukraine, and asked both countries to continue with negotiations of a peace agreement.
The threat of Trump of banks and bank tariffs followed a Reuters report on Monday that the White House was preparing to give Russia a possible relief of sanctions as part of the impulse to end the war and improve diplomatic and economic ties with Moscow.
“Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely 'hitting' Ukraine on the battlefield at this time, I am considering strongly large -scale bank sanctions, sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a final range agreement and a final agreement on peace are reached,” Trump said on his social media platform.
“For Russia and Ukraine, it arrives at the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”
Russian forces have almost surrounded thousands of Ukrainian troops who broke into the Kursk region of Russia last summer in a surprising incursion that kyiv hoped to use as a lever about Moscow in any peace conversation.
The position of Ukraine in Kursk has deteriorated sharply in the last three days, open source maps are shown. The Russian counteroffensive has almost reduced the Ukrainian force in two and separated the main group from its main supply lines.
“The situation (for Ukraine in Kursk) is very bad,” said Pasi Paroinen, military analyst for the Black Bird group with headquarters in Finland. There was no official confirmation of the Russian thrust of Russia or Ukraine, which both tend to inform Battlefield developments with a delay.
The Russian forces also damaged the energy and gas infrastructure within Ukraine during the night in their first great missile attack since the United States stopped the exchange of intelligence with Ukraine.
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Ten people, including a child, were injured, said Ukrainian officials.
When a journalist asked him during an exchange of the Oval office if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was taking advantage of the United States Pause about the exchange of intelligence to attack Ukraine, Trump replied: “I think he is doing what any other person would do.”
“They are bombarding them … you can't do that,” he added, seeing to continue their criticisms of the growing attacks of Moscow, but then openly questioned if Ukraine wants peace.
“(Putin) wants me to end,” he said. “I think Ukraine wants me to end, but I don't see it. It is crazy. They are taking tremendous punishment, I don't understand it. “
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who sought to underpin Western support for Ukraine after the apparent diplomatic axis of the United States to Moscow, responded to the attack when asking for a truce that covers the air and the sea.
“The first steps to establish real peace should be to force the only source of this war, Russia, to stop such attacks,” Zelenskiy said in the telegram messaging application.
Moscow has rejected the idea of a temporary truce, which has also been proposed by Great Britain and France, and said it would never allow the peace maintainers of NATO countries to Ukraine, after the two countries suggested that a European force could monitor any permanent settlement.
Russia, one of the world's largest oil producers, is already subject to broad sanctions imposed by the United States and partners after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
American sanctions on Russia include measures aimed at limiting their income from oil and gas, including a limit of $ 60 per barrel in Russian oil exports.
Trump did not come into details about the possible sanctions against Russia and said later in the Oval office that it was more difficult to deal with Ukraine.
Despite the tension with Trump, Zelenskiy said Thursday night that he would travel to Saudi Arabia next Monday for a meeting with the Saudi heir prince Mohammed Bin Salman before conversations there later in the week among the US and Ukrainian officials.
Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has already held extensive conversations with Russian officials. He said he was in conversations with Ukraine for a peace agreement to put an end to the three -year war and confirmed that a meeting was planned next week with the Ukrainians in Saudi Arabia.
Russia has around a fifth of the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea that annexed in 2014, and its forces constantly advance in the East Region of Donetsk.
Kyiv has been pressing for a solid security guarantee for any peace agreement, but the United States has refused to commit, pointing out a possible critical mineral agreement that Trump says it would be enough. Zelenskiy has not yet signed the mineral agreement and collided with Trump publicly a week ago.
The White House National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, said he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be in the conversations with the Ukrainians in Saudi Arabia, and that he thought they would re -carry things again.
The Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Andrii Sybiha, said he had a “constructive call” with Rubio on Friday.
—With additional files from Associated Press and Global News