“No sanction can force the Russian Federation to change its position.” The Kremlin shows off the security and recites the US threats to “collapse” the Russian economy, derubricating the promised measures by Donald Trump as irrelevant: “The unprecedented number of penalties introduced against our country in almost four years has had no effect”, is the reading of the spokesperson Dmitri Peskov.
But this time Brussels and Washington seem willing to team up to give a shoulder to one of the Russian GDP pillars: oil and gas. “I’m not happy with what is happening in Ukraine,” the Tycoon in the aftermath of the unprecedented attack on the Ukrainian capital Kiev reiterated, where an Iskander missile hit the government headquarters. However, Trump said he was confident that an agreement “will find himself: we have to do it”.
And in the next few days “I will talk to Putin,” he announced. According to Peskov, the American president falls in the game of Ukraine and Europe that “they are doing everything possible to attract Washington in their orbit and impose penalties” against Russia, who so far have “proved to be absolutely useless to exercise pressure on Moscow”. If on the one hand it is true that the measures have not placed a substantial brake to the military campaign of Vladimir’s military campaign. Putin to subjugate Ukraine, on the other, the Russian minister of economic development, Maxim Restnikov, outlined in June an unprecedented picture for Russia “on the verge of a transition to the recession”.
While immediately after Trump’s accelerate on the new penalties against Moscow, Russo Rublo reached its historical minimum against the dollar since 30 July last, while oil prices recorded an increase. The president of the European Council Antonio Costa promised that this time the EU sanctions will be coordinated with the USA, while Brussels’ correspondent David O’Sullivan went to Washington for this purpose: “We are working on 19/O package in close cooperation with Washington”, said Costa, underlining that “secondary measures to the countries that acquire gas and oil from Moscow will also be necessary.
A thorny theme for the Old Continent, where some states continue to rely on Russian energy sources, such as Hungary and Slovakia, so far openly opposed to the EU plans to gradually eliminate Russian oil and gas. The secretary of the US energy Chris Wright said clearly, interviewed by the Financial Times, that if European countries want further American sanctions against Putin, they should first abandon the Russian sources and buy GNL and other fossil fuels from the American ally, as well as foreseen in the agreement on the duties signed by Von der Leyen and Trump in Scotland. The EU provided few details on the O’Sullivan mission in the United States. If you were to coordinate a package between Europe and the USA, it would be the first time from Trump’s return to the White House.
Meanwhile, the Tycoon reported that in the next few days some European leaders will go separately to Washington to speak of the war in Ukraine. The hope for Europe – and for the Government of Zelensky – is that the American president finally passes from the words to the facts on the sanctions, while in the background the wait for a definitive clarification on the American role in the security guarantees for Kiev remains. Putin’s “imperialist plan” will not end with the conquest of Ukraine: it will be only the beginning “, is the vision of the German chancellor Friedrich Merz, according to which the Tsar is not interested in peace. In fact, the war continues tirelessly on the ground: in the aftermath of the record attack with 823 drones and Russian missiles throughout the Ukraine, Kiev reported that 143 UAVs were launched against the cities of the country on the night between Sunday and Monday, bringing yet another death and destruction budget, at the gates of an autumn that promises to be difficult for Ukraine.