LONDON — Without waiting for Washington, the European Union and the U.K. announced a new raft of sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin exchanged a friendly, if fruitless, phone call about ending the war in Ukraine.
The measures will crack down on Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet” — around 200 vessels used to transport Russian oil exports globally — the 27-nation bloc and London said in separate statements. They are the 17th set of European sanctions imposed on Russia since it invaded its neighbor in 2022, the E.U. said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that it was “time to intensify the pressure on Russia to bring about the ceasefire.”
The coordinated efforts came in direct response to Russian drone attacks on Ukraine over the weekend, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a separate statement issued by his government on Tuesday. “Delaying peace efforts will only redouble our resolve to help Ukraine to defend itself and use our sanctions to restrict Putin’s war machine,” he added.
Thanking his European allies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an overnight address that it was “important that America continues to be involved in the peace process.”
“Russia fears American involvement,” he said, adding that many lives could be saved if the U.S. “pressures Putin to end the war.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Kremlin would never bow to “ultimatums.”
The sanctions were announced without accompanying measures from the U.S., despite intense lobbying from European leaders for the White House to do so if Putin rejected a ceasefire.
Trump chose not to impose his own sanctions on Russia after a two-hour-long phone call with Putin on Monday, in which he dropped his earlier insistence on a 30-day truce and suggested that he could walk away entirely from the negotiations to end the war that he once promised to end on “day one” of his second presidential term.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the White House would continue to push an existing bill that could slap a 500% tariff on buyers of Russian oil and gas exports if there was no progress on a peace deal.
But, he added that Trump “believes that right now, you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking, and there’s value in us being able to talk and drive them to get to the table.”
Earlier this week, Trump drew American-born Pope Leo into the conflict, suggesting that the Vatican could play a bigger role in hosting the negotiations.
As uncertainty hangs over Washington’s future role, Reuters reported Wednesday that Ukraine will present a white paper to the E.U. calling for more aggressive measures against Moscow including seizing Russian assets and bringing in sanctions for some buyers of Russian oil.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said dozens of people were injured early Wednesday by Russian drone attacks on the cities of Kharkiv, Sumy and Kyiv.
Moscow also released footage of Putin visiting the western Russian region of Kursk on Tuesday for the first time since his forces regained control from Ukrainian forces.
