A senior U.S. official said sanctions on Russia’s key trading partners are expected to go into effect on Friday, after President Trump’s special mission envoy Steve Witkoff met Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump said Wednesday afternoon that Witkoff and Putin had a “highly productive” meeting, claiming that “great progress” was made.
The senior official said the talks between Witkoff and Putin in Moscow, their fifth meeting since Trump came back into office, “went well” and lasted about three hours.
“The Russians are eager to continue engaging with the United States. The secondary sanctions are still expected to be implemented on Friday,” the official said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic talks.
Trump said in mid-July that Russia could face “severe” tariffs if it did not agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine within the next two months. The president said at the time he would slap a 100 percent “secondary” tariff on countries that do business with the Kremlin, including those that buy Russian oil and gas.
Trump shortened the deadline to Friday, adding he was unsure if the sanctions would deal a great blow to the Russian economy.
“I don’t know that sanctions bother him [Putin]. You know? They know about sanctions. I know better than anybody about sanctions, and tariffs and everything else. I don’t know if that has any effect. But we’re going to do it,” Trump said on July 31.
The president’s Wednesday post about the Putin-Witkoff meeting did not mention sanctions or tariffs.
“Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,” the president wrote Wednesday.
The president penned an executive order Wednesday increasing tariffs on India by 25 percent because of its purchases of Russian oil. The new import tax total is at 50 percent. The levy is set to go into effect in three weeks.
“They’re buying Russian oil, they’re fueling the war machine,” Trump said during a Tuesday interview with CNBC. India has pushed back, saying that buying Russian oil was a “necessity” to stabilize energy costs in the country.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have spearheaded a major sanctions bill against Russia, garnering more than 85 co-sponsors in the Senate. The bill would institute a 500 percent tariff on imports from nations that buy Russian oil, gas and uranium.
Senators left for the August recess without advancing the legislation.
“We propose in our bill 500 percent. If it’s 250 percent, I could live with it. Even if it’s 100 percent, possibly. But you ought to impose bone-crushing sanctions that will stop them from fueling Russia’s war machine,” Blumenthal said last week.
Putin’s envoy for investment and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, said Witkoff’s meeting with Russian officials was “constructive,” adding the U.S.-Russia dialogue would continue and is “critical for global security and peace.”
“Our side has forwarded some signals, in particular on the Ukrainian issue and corresponding signals were received from President Trump,” Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said after the meeting, according to Russian state media.
Trump, who has long called for the nearly three-and-a-half-year war in Eastern Europe to end, has been expressing his frustration with Putin in recent weeks, demanding the Russian leader halt the attacks, often on civilian areas.
Overnight, Russia’s military struck a recreational center in the Zaporizhzhia region, where at least two people have been confirmed dead, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“No matter what the Kremlin says, they will only genuinely seek to end the war once they feel adequate pressure. And right now, it is very important to strengthen all the levers in the arsenal of the United States, Europe, and the G7 so that a ceasefire truly comes into effect immediately,” Zelensky, who talked to Trump on Tuesday, said on social media.
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