The Kremlin has hailed Donald Trump’s decision to waive imminent sanctions on Russia as “historic”, saying the move could strengthen Moscow’s war effort against Ukraine.
The US president signed an executive order late last night suspending sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports that had been due to come into force tomorrow.
The measures were expected to deal a serious blow to Russia’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine, while also imposing heavy penalties on countries accused of helping finance or facilitate the Kremlin’s campaign.
Trump said the decision to suspend the measures, championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham and approved by Congress last month, was taken in the “national interest”.
The decision came as Britain announced it would join Germany and France in a major military exercise in Poland next month. It was also reported last night that RAF jets had experienced two “close encounters with unidentified drones in British skies” so far this year.
Russia’s presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev described Trump’s decision to waive some sanctions and tariffs on Moscow’s energy exports as a “historic moment”.
The Russian envoy spoke just hours after Trump suspended the legislation, known as the Graham Act.
“The Trump administration’s suspension of the Graham Act is an important and truly historic moment,” Dmitriev wrote on the social media platform X.
The Kremlin has called Donald Trump’s waiver of imminent Russia sanctions “historic”, in a decision that could bolster Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Pictured: Vladimir Putin
Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, yesterday
Rescuers extinguish a fire outside residential buildings damaged in a Russian missile attack on Zaporizhzhia overnight
Dmitriev said the US-Russia economic dialogue and peacemaking efforts would continue, arguing that the act could have “effectively brought all economic co-operation between Russia and the United States to a complete halt”. He claimed that such an outcome would have caused serious damage, primarily to the US economy and global markets.
The White House announced the suspension of the Russia sanctions in a post published on its website.
The announcement added that a report setting out the reasons for the decision had been submitted to Congress.
Moscow has viewed the suspension as a major victory and a sign that the US president is supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Putin was seen in military fatigues on state television last night, speaking confidently to army chiefs in footage that suggested the US decision had boosted confidence inside the Kremlin.
Trump also told a supporters’ rally yesterday, held ahead of the midterm congressional elections, that the war in Ukraine “has to stop”.
Meanwhile, Lord Peter Ricketts, the UK’s former national security adviser, accused Trump today of “going all out to woo Putin” in an effort to secure diesel supplies, while using Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “a scapegoat”.
The criticism came a week after Trump angered Ukraine by suspending sanctions on Russia and agreeing a deal to supply the US with an initial shipment of more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by additional deliveries.
The agreement triggered an escalating war of words with Zelensky, who condemned Trump’s decision to lift the sanctions to secure the diesel as “a gift to Putin”. He warned that the move would enable the Russian leader to “kill more people” and “wage war for longer”.
Andy Burnham welcomes president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky outside Number 10 Downing Street
Rescuers work at the site of an apartment building damaged during a Russian air strike on Saturday
In retaliation, Mr Trump said it was time for Ukraine to ‘get a new leader’ and later in the week, he accused Mr Zelensky of destroying Ukraine and ‘being more difficult to deal with than Putin’ while branding Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries as a ‘disgrace’.
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Speaking to the BBC this morning, the former NSA Head and Foreign Office chief Lord Ricketts said that Mr Trump was ‘obsessed’ with bringing diesel prices down ahead of the US midterm elections.
‘He has identified Putin as someone who can help with that. He has diesel. He has oil and gas and Zelensky is an obstacle to that.
‘He gets in the way. He is annoying so now he is the scapegoat and Trump is going all out to woo Putin with the aim of getting that diesel over to America.’
He told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘He is entirely focused on working with Putin to solve his immediate problem.’
The new bill was intended to starve Putin of the resources and finances he needs to step up his war against Ukraine which is now heading towards its fifth year.
It would crucially have imposed tariffs of up to 100 per cent within 30 days on all goods brought into the US from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or gas.
It would also have sanctioned Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps Russian energy circulating around the world.
And it would have imposed tough sanctions on any country who knowingly bought oil or gas from Moscow 30 days after the law was enacted, or any country that was among the top five countries helping Russia evade sanctions.
Countries including China and India would have been affected by the bill.
Announcing the order, Mr Trump said: ‘I have submitted to the Congress a certification that the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States.’
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who had helped to draft the legislation, accused Mr Trump of turning his back on ‘the majority of Americans, their representatives in both houses of Congress, and our European allies’.
‘These waivers have nothing to do with our national security, and everything to do with sucking up to Vladimir Putin,’ he warned.
Police and paramedics evacuate a resident from an apartment building damaged during a Russian air strike
Lagging in the polls and with his approval ratings at an all-time low with his war on Iran unpopular with ordinary Americans, Mr Trump’s latest move is widely seen as a bid to desperately improve his standing ahead of the November 3 midterms.
Calling him ‘mercurial,’ Lord Ricketts said he would not be surprised if he blamed Putin if he did not do well in the elections and changed his position but he warned that it was ‘a real problem for the Ukrainian people’ with the MAGA movement and far-Right politicians in Europe claiming Ukraine could never win the war.
Dismissing the UK as unlikely to ‘have any influence on Donald Trump in the short term’ by the PM ‘acting as a bridge’ between the US and Ukraine, he also warned UK ministers should ‘put more effort into the coalition of the willing ‘to get behind Ukraine and to give Zelensky ‘not just the arm around the shoulder in Downing Street but to give him the material to get through this very difficult winter’.
He also sounded a sombre warning to the government that it should start ‘to warn the British people about what was coming’.
‘Not only is Putin trying to break morale in Ukraine. He is also trying to undermine morale in European countries,’ he said.
‘We have had some pretty stark warnings this week from the Director of MI5 and also from the Head of the Army that there could be worse to come in the form of hybrid attacks in the UK and in other European countries. I would like to hear what they are going to be doing about that.’
Calling on the government to ‘get on with spending the money on defence and also on resilience – our energy, our transport infrastructure, our air traffic control system, our defence sites,’ he warned:
‘They all need better protection and that’s an argument in Parliament that needs to happen because they need to find the money to do it.
‘I am not saying there’s going to be industrial war with tanks rolling across the North German plains but these hybrid attacks are getting more reckless and dangerous – one day people will end up being killed somewhere so we are going to have to look at responding in that sense and finding the money to do it and that’s a discussion that needs to start now.’