‘It Didn’t Feel Right’: Trump Scraps Putin Meeting, Sanctions Oil

President Trump has personally scrapped a planned summit with Vladimir Putin, stating “it didn’t feel right,” as his administration unveiled its toughest sanctions yet on Moscow, targeting oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.
Speaking with the NATO secretary general, Trump confirmed the cancellation. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get so I cancelled it,” he said. This marks a significant breakdown in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
In tandem with the diplomatic move, the US Treasury sanctioned Russia’s two largest oil companies to cut revenue for the “Kremlin’s war machine.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed “President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war” for the new measures.
The US action goes further than the EU’s, which has not sanctioned the privately-owned Lukoil due to exemptions for Hungary and Slovakia. The UK, however, has already sanctioned both firms.
The administration also found itself denying reports of military escalation. Trump took to social media to blast a story about the US approving Ukraine’s use of British missiles inside Russia as “FAKE NEWS!” “The U.S. has nothing to do with those missiles,” he posted.