US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ended his meeting in Alaska without an agreement on the ceasefire on Friday (15 August). Despite Trump’s threat that Moscow will face “very serious consequences”, if the summit does not bring an agreement, he finally said he would wait for new sanctions. According to experts, the stricter US intervention against tankers transporting Russian oil would paralyze Putin’s war machine. TASR informs about this on the basis of the Yahoo report.
The US has a huge impact on the Russian economy and its ability to continue war against Ukraine, but President Trump has subsided from previous warnings that the lack of progress on the ceasefire will lead to hard sanctions for Moscow.
On Saturday (16 August), Trump changed his attitude towards the achievement of a more comprehensive peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, reflecting Putin’s attitude. Trump allegedly also supported Putin’s proposal that Ukraine will give up part of the territory in exchange for Russia’s promise that he would no longer attack.
This is a big shift from Trump’s rhetoric before meeting Alaska. Asked why this change, Trump said he would wait for any new sanctions, and indicated that the threat remained on the table while diplomatic activities were taking place.
The US President had previously warned that the Russian oil sector could face secondary sanctions. Oil and gas generate most of the Kremlin’s income and the US could use this critical vulnerability. In particular, the cutting of the “shadow fleet” of tankers that supply Russian oil would, according to Robin Brooks of the Brooking Institute and the former chief economist of the Institute of International Finance, sent a war economy to the “deep financial crisis”.
After the previous administration of President Joe Biden in January, just before Trump’s return to the White House, they imposed sanctions on nearly 200 ships, their activity collapsedBrooks noted. Another 359 ships were sanctioned by the European Union or the United Kingdom, but the US has not yet. “The sanctioning of these ships would be a big shot for the Russian war machine“Brooks wrote.
Several analysts have described a meeting in Alaska as the success of Putin, Because he managed to avoid serious consequences by Trump and at the same time buy time for his army to make additional profits on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Russia’s and gas revenue fell by 27 % compared to last year and Russia is running out of financial resources as war -related expenditure deepens its budget deficit. The National Fund of Runda, a key source of reserves, has reduced from $ 135 billion (EUR 115.50 billion) in January 2022 to only $ 35 billion in May this year and is expected to exhaust at the end of this year.
“The Russian economy is quickly approaching the fiscal crisis that burdens its war efforts,“He wrote last week in a comment for Project Syndicate Economist and Russia Expert Anders Oslund.” Although it may not be enough to force Putin to look for peace, it indicates that the loop is moving around him. “
