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US president said he had good conversations with his Moscow counterpart but they ‘just don’t go anywhere’
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Russia’s hawkish former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday that American sanctions on Russian oil were an “act of war” against his nation after Washington sought to strong-arm the Kremlin into sitting down for peace talks over Ukraine.
Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, called the United States an “adversary” on Telegram, and indicated that Trump “has now fully embarked on the warpath against Russia.”
“They will, of course, say he couldn’t help but be pressured in Congress, etc. This doesn’t change the main point: the decisions taken are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully aligned himself with insane Europe,” he wrote.
Donald Trump announced new sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies over Vladimir Putin’s “refusal” to end the “senseless war” in Ukraine – the first such measures since he began his second term as US president.
The US Treasury said it was sanctioning Rosneft and Lukoil in response to Putin’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process”.
The US has this week imposed new sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s largest petroleum-producing companies.
After talks to bring about an end to Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine appeared to come to a standstill, the Trump administration made the move to “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy.”
So how much impact could the move have, and what are the implications for nations who rely on Russia to purchase oil?
Three people have been arrested in London on suspicion of assisting Russian intelligence, the Metropolitan Police said on Thursday.
All three were arrested on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service, contrary to section 3 of the National Security Act (NSA), 2023 and they were taken to a police station in London.
The Met said the alleged offences related to Russia.
Commander Dominic Murphy, Head of the Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: “We’re seeing an increasing number of who we would describe as ‘proxies’ being recruited by foreign intelligence services and these arrests are directly related to our ongoing to efforts to disrupt this type of activity.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged European Union leaders on Thursday to agree as soon as possible on a plan to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine.
Zelensky, who is visiting Brussels, said on X that the proposed mechanism for using frozen Russian assets was entirely legal and fair.
He said Ukraine would use a significant part of the assets to buy weapons from its European allies.
Finland will buy American weapons for Ukraine worth 100 million euros, Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat (HS) reported on Thursday, citing the Nordic country’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo.
Children at a kindergarten in Ukraine’s Kharkiv were rushed to safety following a Russian strike on Wednesday.
The attack hit a residential district and destroyed the pre-school, local officials said.
Forty-eight children were evacuated to a shelter following the strike that sparked a fire, officials said.
Four people were hospitalised — two in serious condition and two in moderate condition, authorities said.
Donald Trump hit Russia with a new raft of sanctions targeting major oil companies on Wednesday in an apparent effort to strong-arm the Kremlin into sitting down for peace talks over Ukraine.
The sanctions blacklist Russia’s two largest oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, which between them export around 3.1 million barrels of oil every day.
But what will the sanctions do, and will they get Putin to stop the war?
Ten people were killed in a blast at a Russian munitions plant overnight, Russian media reports.
The explosion was reported to have occurred at a factory in Kopeysk in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Region.
It was not immediately clear what had caused the blast.
Eighteen people sustained injuries, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Any action by the EU to confiscate Russian assets in Euroclear accounts will result in a “painful response” from Russia, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
The EU has no legal means to seize Russian assets, so their confiscation would be ‘theft,’ Zakharova said.
Turkey plans to buy the necessary defence systems from NATO allies and other countries until its domestic fighter jet KAAN is ready for delivery, a Turkish Defence Ministry source said on Thursday.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that Ankara had proposed to its European allies and the United States ways it could swiftly procure advanced fighter jets amid talks to buy 40 Eurofighter Typhoons as well as U.S. F-16s and F-35s, and as President Tayyip Erdogan holds a regional tour to Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.
A person familiar with the matter said that under a deal it is nearing with Britain on the Typhoons, Turkey would promptly receive 12 of them, albeit used, from previous buyers Qatar and Oman to meet its immediate needs.
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