With little progress after phone calls and talks, Ukraine’s allies hit Russia with new sanctions

In this combination of file photos, U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, centre, are seen at the Elysee Palace, Dec. 7, 2024, in Paris, and President Vladimir Putin, right, addresses a Technology Forum in Moscow, Feb. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, left and center, Pavel Bednyakov, right)

KYIV, Ukraine -- Kyiv’s European allies slapped new sanctions Tuesday on Moscow, a day after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce a breakthrough on ending the three-year-old war in Ukraine.

“We have made clear again and again that we simply expect one thing from Russia now: namely, a ceasefire, unconditional and immediate,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in addressing the sanctions. “We welcome the fact that Ukraine is still prepared to do this. We note with disappointment that Russia has not yet taken this decisive step, and we will have to react to this.”

Diplomatic efforts have seen little progress in halting the fighting, including Monday’s phone call between Trump and Putin, and Friday’s direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul. In the phone call, Putin promised Trump that Russia is “ready to work with” Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining the framework for “a possible future peace treaty.”

“It appears that Putin has devised a way to offer Trump an interim, tangible outcome from Washington’s peace efforts without making any real concessions,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, in a post on X.

Russian media struck a triumphal tone in reporting Putin’s conversation with Trump.

Ukrainian leader seeks pressure on Moscow

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his Telegram channel that “it is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time to continue the war and occupation. We are working with partners to put pressure on the Russians to behave differently.”

The new European Union sanctions targeted almost 200 ships from Russia’s “shadow fleet” illicitly transporting oil to skirt Western restrictions It also imposed asset freezes and travel bans on several officials as well as on a number of Russian companies.

Ukrainian officials have said about 500 aging ships of uncertain ownership and safety practices are dodging sanctions and keeping oil revenues flowing to Moscow.

The U.K. also targeted the shadow fleet with 100 new sanctions and also aimed at disrupting the supply chains of Russian weapons, officials said.

“Putin’s latest strikes once again show his true colours as a warmonger,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.

But Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Tuesday: “Russia never responds to ultimatums.”

No new sanctions on Russia from Trump

Trump has threatened to step up sanctions and tariffs on Russia but hasn’t acted so far.

Ukraine has offered a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire, which Moscow has effectively rejected by imposing far-reaching conditions, and Zelenskyy proposed a face-to-face meeting with Putin last week but the Russian leader spurned that offer.

Trump, who had pledged during his campaign to end the war in one day, said his personal intervention was needed to push peace efforts forward. He held separate phone calls with both Putin and Zelenskyy, and said the two countries would “immediately” begin ceasefire negotiations, but there were no details on when or where such talks might take place.

“The status quo has not changed,” Mykhailo Podoliak, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, wrote on the social platform X on Tuesday.

Russia launched 108 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said. One drone dropped explosives on a passenger bus in the Dniprovskyi district of the Kherson region, injuring two people, the local administration said.

Putin wants Ukraine to renounce joining NATO, sharply cut its military, and withdraw its forces from the four Ukrainian regions Moscow has seized but doesn’t fully control, among other demands to curb the country’s sovereignty.

After the phone call, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti published an article headlined, “Europe’s hopes crushed: Trump refuses to go to war with Putin.”

In the pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets, columnist Mikhail Rostovsky also portrayed the call as a blow for Ukraine’s European allies.

“Kyiv will agree to a serious, fully fledged conversation with Russia only if it has no other options left. Trump is gradually cutting off these other options for Zelenskyy,” he wrote. “And this is very, very good.”

Since Trump took office, Washington has urged Russia and Ukraine to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

European leaders remain skeptical of Putin

After Monday’s phone calls, European officials remained skeptical about Russia’s intentions.

“Putin has never changed his position,” Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said in Brussels. “Russia actually doesn’t want to end this war.”

EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said Russia’s failure to negotiate in good faith should trigger the threatened U.S. sanctions.

“We really haven’t seen, you know, the pressure on Russia from these talks,” she said.

In Kyiv, there was skepticism about Putin’s motives.

Peace “is not possible now. Only when (the Russians) run out of resources and army manpower. They are ready to fight, at least for this summer,” Svitlana Kyryliuk, 66, told The Associated Press. Putin will “stall for time, and that’s it,” she said.

Volodymyr Lysytsia, a 45-year-old serviceman visiting the capital for rehabilitation, said Putin has made the front lines in eastern Ukraine a wasteland, with “nothing there, only scorched earth, everything bombed.”

Some were unconvinced by Putin’s promise to Trump that Russia is “ready to work with” Ukraine on a “memorandum” outlining the framework for “a possible future peace treaty.”

The first direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks since the early weeks of Moscow’s 2022 invasion ended after less than two hours Friday, and while both sides agreed on a large prisoner swap, they clearly remained far apart on key conditions to end the fighting.

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By Illia Novikov And Yehor Konovalov, The Associated Press

Lorne Cook in Brussels, Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.