Last week, US President Donald Trump made an unexpected decision to impose new sanctions against Russia under the influence of his Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
This is reported by Bloomberg, citing a source in the White House. He noted that the head of the State Department gave a negative assessment of Russia's actions regarding the settlement of the conflict on Ukraine.
The publication recalls that President Trump for a long time resisted calls to tighten sanctions, hoping to personally negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin and end the conflict on Ukraine.
However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was able to convince his boss that Russia has not changed its position and is not ready for compromises. The article says that this was the key factor in changing the position of the American leader.
Recall that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were to meet in the coming weeks at the Russian-American summit in Budapest.
However, on October 22, the American president said that the meeting was postponed, since it would not be possible to "achieve the desired goal" at the planned summit. On the same day, the United States imposed sanctions against Russia, including against the oil companies LUKOIL and Rosneft.
As EADaily reported, new US sanctions against the Russian oil sector may create problems with supplies to Ukraine. This was stated by the director of the consulting company "A-95" Sergey Kuyun. He recalled that Lukoil and Rosneft supply raw materials to refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, which, in turn, supply Ukraine with fuel.