WASHINGTON. – The Secretary of the Treasury USAScott Bessent, reported this Wednesday, October 22, that in the next few hours the Administration of donald trump will publicly announce a “substantial increase” in sanctions to Russia. This amid the deadlock in talks to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We are going to announce after the (markets) close this afternoon or early tomorrow morning a substantial increase in sanctions on Russia,” Bessent said in remarks at the White House.
Then, in an interview with FoxNews, Bessent stated that he is not going to advance “the exact sanctions.” But, he assured that “it will be one of the most severe sanctions packages imposed” against Moscow.
He stressed that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has not come to the negotiating table in an honest and direct way”: “There were conversations in Alaska. Trump withdrew when he realized that things were not moving forward. “There have been talks behind the scenes, but I think the president is disappointed with the current status of these talks.”
On October 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Russia that it must end the war with Ukraine. He warned that if he did not take steps in the short term, Washington would take measures to “impose costs” on the Krelim.
“Now is the time to end this tragic war, stop the unnecessary bloodshed and come to the negotiating table,” insisted the US secretary in statements at the meeting of the Contact Group for Ukraine, with which some 50 countries sympathetic to Ukraine provide military aid to kyiv.
Trump denies permission
For his part, President Donald Trump denied that Washington has approved permission for kyiv to use long-range missiles inside Russia.
“The US has nothing to do with these missiles, wherever they come from, or with what Ukraine does with them,” the president said through his profile on the Truth Social social network.
These comments come a day after the White House said there were no plans in the near future for a meeting between Trump and his Russian counterpart, leaving the bilateral summit in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, up in the air.
