Update(1920ET): During their late afternoon press conference in the Oval Office, President Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte fielded questions from the media, including from ZeroHedge White House correspondent Liam Cosgrove.
It was our chance to put Rutte in the hot seat amid ratcheting dangerous escalation in what has clearly long been a proxy war in Ukraine – with what Trump would in that moment call a “fair question” – and the NATO chief appeared to struggle to answer, but also dodged a key follow-up. Cosgrove first highlighted a “massive collapse” in Ukrainian public support for the war. “People view your coming here as lobbying the US government to continue its involvement in the war… but Ukrainians themselves don’t want to fight the war so how do you justify that morally?”
Rutte waffled, talking about wanting peace, but then praised Trump’s plan of injecting more weapons by selling them to NATO, for ultimate use in Ukraine. Cosgrove then pressed him, incredulously posing: “You think more weapons will wind down the war?” Rutte dodged, and was visibly uncomfortable while Trump actually seemed pleased to look on in observation as it unfolded. Watch the tense exchange below, at the end of which Trump also chimes in:
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Update(1651ET): Washington is predictably making demands of Russia, despite that Ukraine still doesn’t have much in the way of leverage on the battlefield – and at a moment President Trump has refused to bring real pressure to bear on Kiev to make territorial concessions.
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent in a Wednesday afternoon statement, after he said new sanctions are imminent.
“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. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”
The companies have been named in the Treasury statement as follows:
Today’s action targets Russia’s two largest oil companies, Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft) and Lukoil OAO (Lukoil), which are now designated. Rosneft is a vertically integrated energy company specializing in the exploration, extraction, production, refining, transport, and sale of petroleum, natural gas, and petroleum products. Lukoil engages in the exploration, production, refining, marketing, and distribution of oil and gas in Russia and internationally.
Rosneft and Lukoil are being designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 for operating or having operated in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy.
Dozens of Russia-based Rosneft and Lukoil subsidiaries have also been named as falling under the fresh sanctions.
This takes the two sides further away from actually striking a peace deal at the negotiating table than ever before.
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Update(1546ET): A couple of significant breaking headlines saw oil prices spike Wednesday afternoon, especially US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing Washington would unveil fresh sanctions against Russia, and coming only day after President Trump shelved talks with Moscow on the Ukraine war, after initial talk of a Budapest summit with Putin.
“We are going to either announce after the close this afternoon, or first thing tomorrow morning, a substantial pickup in Russia sanctions,” Bessent told reporters at the White House.
Bessent later told Larry Kudlow that the imminent Russia sanctions will be one of the biggest yet:
“President Putin has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner, as we’d hoped.
There were talks in Alaska, President Trump walked away when he realized that things were not moving forward.
There have been behind-the-scenes talks, but I believe that the president is disappointed at the – where we are in these talks.
So this — either this evening or first thing tomorrow morning, we are going to be announcing a substantial increase in Russia’s sanctions… this will be one of the largest sanctions that we have done against the Russian Federation.“
His comments sent the price of WTI Crude soaring…
Bessent’s comments came just before NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was due at the White House, in which he said he hopes to discuss “how to deliver” Trump’s “vision of peace” in the conflict.
Earlier in the day, Rutte said he believes that Trump is “the only one who can get this done”.
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Just as NATO secretary general Mark Rutte is in Washington and is set to meet with President Trump Wednesday afternoon, Russia has launched another major overnight drone and missile attack which resulted in a high amount of civilian casualties.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X that the attack killed at least seven civilians, including children, and that 17 were confirmed injured. “There were fires in Zaporizhzhia and hits on homes in Kyiv. The Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy and Sumy regions were under attack,” he wrote.
In all at least ten regions came under attack, and air defense were active across the country, with at least one major drone intercept caught on camera (below).
Zelensky highlighted both the ongoing need for Western-supplied air defense systems, as well as piling more sanctions on Moscow to make it feel the pressure. “Russian words about diplomacy mean nothing as long as the Russian leadership doesn’t feel critical problems,” Zelensky asserted.
Also, Zelensky alleged that Russia’s assault directly struck a kindergarten in Kharkiv, and that one fatality occurred as a result. He described all children were evacuated, with many “experiencing acute stress reactions”.
Many regions across the country have been experiencing blackouts as well, after already the national electricity grid operator said it would be forced to implement an emergency program of rolling outages.
Zelensky has been arguing that Moscow has no interest whatsoever in peace: “These strikes are Russia’s spit in the face of everyone who insists on a peaceful resolution. Bandits and terrorists can only be put in their place by force.”
Russia’s military, for its part, has countered that it only targeted the “energy infrastructure of Ukraine’s military-industrial sector”. Moscow has frequently denied that it intentionally targets civilian sites and homes.
“In response to Ukraine’s terrorist attacks on civilian facilities on the territory of Russia, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a massive overnight strike by ground-based and airborne long-range precision weapons, including Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic ballistic missiles and also attack unmanned aerial vehicles, hitting energy infrastructure of Ukraine’s military-industrial sector,” a statement in TASS said.
It added, “The goals of the strike were achieved. All the designated targets were hit.” Likely Russian officials are going to deny that the military attacked a children’s school.
The military has also said Russian troops captured two settlements in the Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions over the past 24 hours.
“Battlegroup Center units liberated the settlement of Ivanovka in the Dnepropetrovsk Region through decisive operations… Battlegroup East units kept advancing deep into the enemy’s defenses and liberated the settlement of Pavlovka in the Zaporozhye Region,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
NATO’s Rutte in Washington will likely press Trump to take a firmer stance on Russia, and the two might even privately discussing transferring US Tomahawk missiles to Kiev. Trump has signaled he’s against this for now, but the option has probably not been taken off the table just yet.