Ukraine’s chief welcomed a raft of latest financial sanctions towards Russia being imposed by the Trump administration and the European Union on Thursday, calling the elevated stress on Moscow “very important.”
The sanctions are a win for Zelenskyy. However regardless of President Trump’s open frustration with Russia’s strongman chief, who has refused to barter a truce, American stress on Moscow has elevated solely economically to date, not with the availability of long-range further weapons, and even with overt permission to launch assaults deeper inside Russia.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent inspired allies to “join in” as he introduced the brand new U.S. sanctions on Wednesday, and the European Union rapidly did.
The EU heaped new financial sanctions on Russia Thursday as a part of the broadened effort to choke off the income that funds Moscow’s three-year invasion of Ukraine and compel President Vladimir Putin to barter an finish to the warfare.
“We waited for this. God bless, it will work. And this is very important,” the Ukrainian chief mentioned in Brussels, the place EU international locations attending a summit introduced the bloc’s newest spherical of sanctions.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left) and European Council President Antonio Costa arrive for a European Council assembly gathering the 27 EU leaders to debate Ukraine and different issues in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 23, 2025.
MAGALI COHEN/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty
Posting earlier on social media as he arrived in Brussels, Zelenskyy thanked Mr. Trump for a “resolute and well-targeted decision,” calling the U.S. sanctions a “clear signal that prolonging the war and spreading terror come at a cost.”
“It is a strong and much-needed message that aggression will not go unanswered,” he mentioned, including a name later for different nations to affix in sanctioning Russia.
Russia dismissive, however ex-president calls sanctions an “act of war”
“Pressure or no pressure, it won’t make things any sweeter for Zelenskyy. And what’s more, it won’t bring peace any closer,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, a preferred pro-Kremlin tabloid, mentioned.
Former president and present chair of the Russian state Safety Council Dmitry Medvedev went additional, because the outspoken determine usually does, declaring the U.S. sanctions “an act of war.”
“The U.S. is our enemy, and their talkative ‘peacemaker’ has now fully embarked on the warpath with Russia,” Medvedev wrote in a message posted on social media. “The decisions taken are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully aligned himself with loony Europe.”
The measures are a long-sought triumph for Zelenskyy, who has campaigned for the worldwide group to punish Russia extra comprehensively for attacking his nation.
Regardless of U.S.-led peace efforts in latest months, the warfare exhibits no signal of ending after greater than three years of preventing, and European leaders are more and more involved concerning the menace from Russia.
Ukrainian forces have largely held Russia’s larger military at bay in a gradual and ruinous warfare of attrition alongside a roughly 600-mile entrance line that snakes alongside jap and southern Ukraine.
Nearly each day Russian long-range strikes have taken goal at Ukraine’s energy grid forward of the bitter winter, whereas Ukrainian forces have focused Russian oil refineries and manufacturing crops.
Trump pissed off with Putin, however to date providing sanctions, not missiles
Vitality income is the linchpin of Russia’s financial system, permitting Putin to pour cash into the armed forces with out worsening inflation and avoiding a forex collapse.
The EU measures goal Russian oil and fuel, the Russian shadow fleet of a whole bunch of getting older tankers which might be dodging sanctions, and Russia’s monetary sector. A brand new system for limiting the motion of Russian diplomats throughout the 27-nation EU can even be launched.
Zelenskyy urged extra nations to punish Russia. “This is a good signal to other countries in the world to join the sanctions,” he advised reporters in Brussels.
Senior officers in Europe and the US have debated for months over how finest to crank up stress on the Kremlin.
“The U.S. has nothing to do with those missiles, wherever they may come from, or what Ukraine does with them!” Mr. Trump mentioned in a submit on his personal Reality Social platform.
Mr. Trump has additionally, to date, dissatisfied Zelenskyy in his long-running bid to safe American-made Tomahawk long-range missiles to make use of in his nation’s protection.
Trump meets with Zelenskyy, says he’d reasonably dealer peace than ship Tomahawks to Ukraine
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Zelenskyy additionally reiterated on Thursday that Ukraine wouldn’t conform to cede any land occupied by Russia as a part of a ceasefire settlement. Mr. Trump mentioned this week that the preventing must be paused with the battle traces frozen the place they stand — with Russia’s invading forces accountable for about 78% of Ukraine’s jap Donbas area, he mentioned.
The brand new EU measures took nearly a month to resolve. The 27-nation bloc has already slapped 18 packages of sanctions towards Russia over the warfare, however getting last settlement on whom and what to focus on can take weeks. Moscow has additionally proved adept at sidestepping sanctions.
The U.S. sanctions got here after Mr. Trump mentioned that his plan for a swift assembly with Putin was on maintain as a result of he didn’t need it to be a “waste of time.” It was the newest twist in Mr. Trump’s hot-and-cold efforts to finish the warfare as Putin refuses to budge from his calls for.
President Trump expressed frustration with Putin on the Oval Workplace once more on Wednesday, telling reporters that “every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere.”
In what gave the impression to be a public reminder of Russian atomic arsenals, Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the nation’s strategic nuclear forces.
With no peace in sight, Ukraine and Russia hold preventing
The 2 sides continued to pummel one another with strikes in a single day.
In a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv area, Russia carried out a so-called double-tap drone strike, hitting the identical place a second time when first responders arrived on the scene of the primary strike, regional head Oleh Syniehubov mentioned. One emergency employee was killed and 5 of his colleagues have been injured, Syniehubov mentioned.
Russian drones additionally attacked three districts of Kyiv, injuring eight folks, in accordance with metropolis’s prosecutor’s workplace.
The Russian Protection Ministry, in the meantime, reported intercepting and destroying 139 Ukrainian drones over Russian areas and the annexed Crimean peninsula in a single day.
It didn’t touch upon unconfirmed studies that Ukrainian drones hit one other oil refinery and an unspecified vitality facility.
