Russia ‘Carefully’ Monitoring Trump’s Sanctions Threats, Kremlin Official Says

Trump said he would use more economic punishment against Russia over the war.
Russia ‘Carefully’ Monitoring Trump’s Sanctions Threats, Kremlin Official Says
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov moderates Russian President Vladimir Putin's year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor exhibition hall in central Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 14, 2023. Alexander Zemlianichenko/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Jack Phillips
Updated:
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The Russian government is “carefully” monitoring threats of sanctions that were recently suggested by U.S. President Donald Trump, a Kremlin spokesman said on Thursday.

Days after he was inaugurated earlier this week, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Russian President Vladimir Putin should move to end the nearly three-year-long war in Ukraine or face economic penalties.

Without a deal to end the conflict, Trump wrote on Wednesday, “I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”

The president did not elaborate on what countries the United States may penalize.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Pesktov told reporters on Thursday that Trump had often applied sanctions against Russia in his first term in office.

“We do not see any particularly new elements here,” he told reporters. “He likes these methods, at least he liked them during his first presidency,” he said.

Moscow was closely monitoring all of Trump’s statements, said Peskov.

“We carefully record all the nuances. We remain ready for dialogue, President Putin has repeatedly spoken about this—for equal dialogue, for mutually respectful dialogue,” he said.

The Biden administration levied harsh sanctions on Russian industries, including its energy, banking, defense, and manufacturing sectors in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

During the 2024 campaign and since his election win, Trump has said that he wants to quickly end the Russia–Ukraine conflict. Initially, he said he would try to end it within 24 hours.

Earlier this week, Trump told reporters that one of his first orders of business is to speak with Putin about the conflict, accusing the Russian leader of “destroying Russia.”

“He can’t be thrilled, he’s not doing so well,” Trump said as he was signing numerous executive orders on Monday evening in the White House’s Oval Office. Compared with Ukraine, he added, “Russia is bigger, they have more soldiers to lose, but that’s no way to run a country.”

When asked about how long he believes the war will last, Trump said he couldn’t say.

“I have to speak to President Putin. We’re going to have to find out,” he said.

A day later, Trump said at a news conference that he estimates Russia has lost around 800,000 soldiers in the conflict so far, while Ukraine has lost between 600,000 and 700,000.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC News on that same day that Trump “wants the dying to stop” in Ukraine.

“Will it be complicated? Of course, because every side is going to have to give something,” Rubio said.

Aside from the Ukraine conflict, another Russian official this week warned the United States against retaking the Panama Canal after Trump suggested the U.S. government could reassert control over the key waterway.

“Russia has been a party to the protocol since 1988 and reaffirms its obligations to respect the permanent neutrality of the Panama Canal, advocating for keeping this international transit waterway safe and open,” Alexander Shchetinin, head of the Latin American department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said before adding that the canal legally belongs to Panama.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Jack Phillips
Jack Phillips
Breaking News Reporter
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter who covers a range of topics, including politics, U.S., and health news. A father of two, Jack grew up in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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