European leaders have pledged to maintain pressure on Russia to end its war on Ukraine amid growing diplomatic efforts to force the Kremlin to negotiate.
However, officials privately acknowledged that the most effective measures would come only if the U.S. signed up to hard-hitting economic restrictions and stronger enforcement. A high-level technical team was dispatched to Washington last week and talks are ongoing.
U.S. President Donald Trump, however, has said he will agree to “major” sanctions on Russia if NATO countries complete their exit from Russian oil — a tough requirement given countries like Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia have refused to find alternative suppliers.
Trump repeated his call during a state visit to the U.K. this week, saying “if the price of oil comes down, Putin is going to drop out … He’s going to have no choice. He’s going to drop out of that war.”
Responding to the package, Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk said “we, of course, want as many tough sanctions as possible. But we also understand that some of the measures are more difficult to adopt than the others, and we have a lot of respect to our partners for the effort they’ve taken so far.”
“This is just the beginning,” he added. “We are going to see a lot of development in the sanctions area in the coming weeks and months.”