EA on WION and BBC: Ukraine — Putin Snubs Trump Over Meeting and Russia’s Attacks on Civilians

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Why Trump’s Retreat on Ukraine Is Not Putin’s Victory

Wednesday’s Coverage: Trump-Putin Summit Cancelled

UPDATE 1421 GMT:

Like counterparts in India (see 1027 GMT), Chinese State oil refineries are suspending purchases of seaborne Russian oil after the US sanctions on Russia’s largest companies Rosneft and Lukoil, say “multiple trade sources”.

PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC, and Zhenhua Oil will refrain from dealing in seaborne Russian oil at least in the short term.

China imports around 1.4 million barrels of Russian oil per day by sea. Most of that is bought by independent refiners. Estimates of purchases by state refiners vary from under 250,000 bpd to 500,000 bpd.

Several traders said independent refiners are likely to pause buying to assess the impact of sanctions but will seek to continue purchases.

China also imports approximately 900,000 bpd of Russian oil by pipeline, all of it going to PetroChina.

UPDATE 1405 GMT:

A firefighter has been murdered and 17 people wounded by Russia’s overnight drone attack across Ukraine.

Air defenses intercepted 92 of 130 drones, but civilian infrastructure including a historic synagogue and a railway station were targeted.

In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, firefighter Yurii Chystikov was killed by a double-tap attack. Russian forces struck a second time as first responders extinguished a blaze from the initial strike. Five firefighters were injured.

Nine of the injured were in Kyiv, where Russia killed six civilians 24 hours earlier. Residential buildings, a school, a kindergarten, and the Kyiv Great Choral Synagogue were damaged.

Two victims are in serious condition.

In Sumy in the northeast, two railway workers and a woman were injured during an attack on a railway station.

UPDATE 1351 GMT:

Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo says Helsinki will buy €100 million ($116 million) of US weapons for Ukraine.

UPDATE 1027 GMT:

“Senior managers at Indian refineries” say they are expected to cut almost all purchases from Russia amid the US sanctions on Moscow’s leading companies Rosneft and Lukoil.

In September, India purchased 1.6 million barrels per day from Russia, covering 36% of its import needs. At the peak of trade, between April and June of this year, supplies reached almost 2 million barrels per day. India is Moscow’s second-largest market after China.

Two industry sources confirmed that Reliance Industries, India’s largest buyer of Russian oil, will sharply reduce or stop imports. Contracts with Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum, and Mangalore Refinery are being reviewed.

UPDATE 1007 GMT:

Two Ukrainian journalists have been killed by a Russian drone attack in the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

Freedom TV reporter Olena Hramova and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin were slain when their car was hit by a Lancet kamikaze drone.

As of October 9, Russia had killed at least 133 media personnel in Ukraine, including those who had joined the military, and committed 848 crimes against journalists and media outlets, according to the Institute of Mass Information.

UPDATE 0955 GMT:

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun has said of US sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, “China consistently opposes unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council.”

Guo also criticized new European Union sanctions that may affect Chinese companies, saying Beijing is “strongly dissatisfied”.

China is neither the creator of the Ukraine crisis nor a party to it. The European side is in no position to make irresponsible remarks about the normal exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and Russian enterprises.”

UPDATE 0912 GMT:

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has snapped that US sanctions on Russian oil companies are “extremely counterproductive”.

The Ministry insisted that the European Union’s imminent 19th package of sanctions will work against the bloc rather than Moscow.

Spokesperson Maria Zakharova want that any EU confiscation of Russian assets will bring a “painful response” from Russia.

The bloc will discuss a €140 billion ($162 billion_ “reparation loan” to Ukraine, backed by Moscow’s frozen assets, in Brussels on Thursday.

“The EU has no legal means to seize Russian assets, so their confiscation would be ‘theft,’” Zakharova said.

She maintained the Kremlin’s maximum demands, declaring Russian goals in Ukraine remain unchanged with the template phrase that “the root causes of the conflict” need to be resolved.

Former President Dmitry Medvedev declared, “The US is our enemy, and their talkative ‘peacemaker’ [Donald Trump] has now fully embarked on the warpath with Russia. The decisions taken are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully aligned himself with loony Europe.”

UPDATE 0851 GMT:

Ukraine’s drones have struck another oil refinery inside Russia, about 120 miles southeast of Moscow.

Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said “falling debris caused a fire at one of the enterprises” without naming the oil refinery.

In 2024 the complex processed 13.1 million metric tons — 262,000 barrels per day — which was nearly 5% of Russia’s total refining throughput.

UPDATE 0846 GMT: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed the US sanctions against Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil.

UPDATE 0744 GMT:

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has held out hope of renewed talks with Russia, despite the US imposition of sanctions on Moscow’s oil companies.

Rubio told reporters on Wednesday night as he left for Israel:

We’d still like to meet with the Russians … I had a good call with Foreign Minister Lavrov and we’ll follow up on that. We’re always going to be interested in engaging if there’s an opportunity to achieve peace.

I think the President has said repeatedly for a number of months now that at some point he will have to do something if we don’t make progress on the peace deal. Today was the day he decided to do something.

UPDATE 0722 GMT:

Hours after murdering six civilians in Kyiv, Russia attacked again on Wednesday night, injured seven people.

Explosions from incoming drones were reported around 11:00 p.m. Resident Paul Niland said of a strike on the Podil neighbourhood. “It’s a peaceful residential area….There are no military objects around here; people live here.”

The roof of a residential building was hit, and the windows of other buildings were shattered. Debris was spread across the street in front of the Kyiv Great Choral Synagogue in Podil neighbourhood, across from another residential building that was hit.

UPDATE 0712 GMT:

As the US sanctions Russia’s largest oil companies, the European Union is expected to adopt its 19th sanctions package against Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.

The package will advance the ban on the import of Russian liquefied natural gas by a year to January 1, 2027. It blacklists more than 100 additional tankers of Russia’s “shadow fleet”, and imposes controls on the travel of Russian diplomats suspected of espionage.

The EU will also unveil plans for a €140 billion ($162 billion) loan to Ukraine, drawn from Russia’s frozen assets.

The measures are due to be confirmed on Thursday, just before Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky joins EU leaders in Brussels.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted after a conversation with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent:

UPDATE 0652 GMT:

Officials have told The Wall Street Journal that the Trump Administration gave permission for Ukraine to use long-range missiles supplied by allies, including the UK and France, for attacks deep inside Russia.

Earlier this week, British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles struck a major chemical plant in Bryansk in western Russia.

The Biden Administration had maintained a ban not only on Ukraine’s use of US missiles, but also on the Storm Shadows and French SCALPs

Donald Trump denied on social media that he lifted restrictions: “The US has nothing to do with those missiles, wherever they may come from, or what Ukraine does with them.”

However, an official said the decision to lift the restrictions was made before Volodymyr Zelensky met with Trump in the White House last Friday. It came after the authority for the strikes was moved from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The US Treasury has sanctioned Moscow’s largest oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil “as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is also designating Rosneft and Lukoil subsidiaries.

The Treasury said in a statement:

Today’s actions increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy. The United States will continue to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the war, and a permanent peace depends entirely on Russia’s willingness to negotiate in good faith.

The two Russian oil firms export 3.1 million barrels of oil per day. Rosneft is responsible for almost half of all Russian oil production, which makes up 6% of the global output.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement, “Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire. Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine.”

He concluded, “We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”

The UK sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil last week. The EU has sanctioned State-owned Rosneft but not privately-owned Lukoil, largely because of exemptions for Hungary and Slovakia who rely on the Russian supplies.

The Path to Sanctions

As Russia rejected any halt to its 45-month, full-scale invasion of Ukraine and escalated aerial attacks on civilian areas, Donald Trump threatened this summer to impose sanctions on Moscow.

He backed off after an August 15 summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. However, amid Trump’s anger with India for failing to credit him with “stopping war” with Pakistan, the Administration raised tariffs from 25% to 50% on the basis of New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.

Last week Treasury Secretary Bessent was in discussions with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko in Washington. A Putin phone call to Trump on Thursday appeared to swing the reality TV star back towards Moscow, with the announcement of a forthcoming summit in Budapest.

In Friday’s White House meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump pulled back from supply of Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv and put out the Kremlin’s line that it should be given the rest of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

However, by the end of the meeting, Trump returned to a freeze of the frontlines as the basis of talks. The Kremlin rejected this as it maintained its maximum demands for Ukraine’s capitulation. Meanwhile, it carried out intensive missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s civilian sites and energy infrastructure.

Early Tuesday, the Russians killed six civilians in Kyiv, including a mother and her two daughters and a husband and wife. A strike on a kindergarten in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv murdered one person and injured seven.

The Kremlin effectively pulled out of the proposed summit in Hungary, with Lavrov cancelling a preparatory meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump said on Tuesday afternoon that the encounter with Putin would be a waste of time.

Secondary Sanctions?

The US sanctions include an asset freeze on all property and interests of the two Russian companies and their subsidies.

However, the major effect would be in the imposition of secondary sanctions on any entities who trade with Rosneft or Lukoil. That would firms and financial institutions in China and India, the two largest customers of Russia’s oil.

The Treasury posted, “Engaging in certain transactions involving the persons designated today may risk the imposition of secondary sanctions on participating foreign financial institutions.”

Edward Fishman, a former senior State Department sanctions official, wrote:

He summarized:

I expect, at the very least, some pullback from dealings with Russian oil in the short term. Whether this marks a long-term, strategic squeeze on Russia’s oil revenues – the lifeblood of Putin’s economy – will depend on the US commitment to active, ongoing enforcement.

Marshall Billingslea, a Treasury official during Trump’s first term, said,“Even if the Indian, Chinese, Turkish refiners want to keep buying, their bank(s) may say ‘No’.”