“Well, there’s not much room left for sanctions on our side. We’ve hit their big oil companies, which everyone has been asking for. Obviously, it still needs to be implemented and it’s going to take some time to see the effect. But I don’t know what more we could do. We’re running out of options in that regard,” Rubio said, according to a transcript of the press conference on the US Department’s website.
When asked whether the US could sanction the Russian shadow fleet, he replied that it is more up to the Europeans.
“The Europeans can do something in this area, that’s why it’s happening in areas that are much closer to them,” said the head of American diplomacy, adding that although the United States is interested in the shadow fleet and they want to impose sanctions on it, they need to be enforced, according to him. “We will not impose sanctions in order not to enforce them,” he said.
Rubio made this statement after the United States imposed sanctions on the two Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft in the second half of October. Finance Minister Scott Bessent explained the sanctions by saying that Russian leader Vladimir Putin refuses to end his war in Ukraine. “Now is the time to stop the killing and achieve an immediate ceasefire,” Bessent said.
The sanctions subsequently enraged Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, who declared that the US is Russia’s enemy and that US President Donald Trump, whom he described as a “talkative peacemaker”, had embarked on a “war path against Russia”.
