Europe joins Trump in squeezing more sanctions on Russia as Ukraine war rages on

The European Union joined the US in heaping more economic sanctions on Russia Thursday — adding to President Trump’s latest punitive measures to choke off the revenue that’s funding Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.EU countries formally adopted the sanctions — including a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports — as part of a broadened push to force President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war.The EU measures largely target Russian oil and gas, the Russian shadow fleet of aging tankers and Russia’s financial sector.A triumphant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky celebrated the new sanctions and urged more countries to punish Russia even further.“We waited for this.God bless, it will work.

And this is very important,” Zelensky said.“This is a good signal to other countries in the world to join the sanctions.”The latest efforts come a day after the US rolled out some of its most crippling economic penalties on Russia’s two biggest oil firms.The US sanctions on Moscow’s two largest energy companies — Rosneft and Lukoil — came after a planned summit between Trump and Putin was scrapped.Trump said his plan for the swift meeting with Putin was on hold because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.”“These are tremendous sanctions,” Trump said.“We hope that they won’t be on for long; we hope that the war will be settled.”“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate cease-fire,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent added, noting the two firms help “fund the Kremlin’s war machine.”With Post wires...