A joint statement published on August 29, after a meeting of members of the governments of the two countries, says that France and Germany will insist on taking measures directed against “companies from third countries supporting the Russian War” to limit Moscow’s capabilities to sell oil.
As the agency indicated, the initiative to expand sanctions against the Russian Federation appeared due to the fact that European leaders lose patience due to Trump's unwillingness to openly withstand the illegitimate Russian president Vladimir Putin in connection with his war against Ukraine.
The allies of Ukraine hope that this step can push Trump to fulfill his threats to expand sanctions against the Russian Federation.
On August 25, the US president threatened that “very serious consequences” may come if Russia does not sit at the negotiating table, and threatened to “intervene” if there is no progress in two weeks.
Instead of progress on the issue of achieving a peace agreement, the Russian Federation this week made one of the most massive attacks this year in Ukraine using drones and missiles, amazing residential buildings and killing at least four children (according to the latest data, 25 people were killed in Kyiv), Bloomberg summed up.
Context
On August 18, in Washington, a meeting of Trump and European leaders was held, including President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. They talked about guarantees of security and the upcoming meeting of Zelensky with Putin, as well as their trilateral meeting with Trump. On the same day, the US President called Putin on the phone, and later stated that he began organizing a meeting between him and Zelensky. However, the Kremlin began to put forward conditions.
The White House was repeated on August 19 that Putin agreed to a bilateral meeting, but after that the Russian Foreign Ministry once again said that negotiations at the highest level “needed to be carefully prepared.”
The world media suggest that Putin will delay, dodge or refuse negotiations with Zelensky and Trump.
After the attack of the Russian Federation in Kyiv on August 28, Mertz stated that there would obviously would not be meetings between Zelensky and Putin. On August 29, the Chancellor of Germany expressed the opinion that the war in Ukraine may last many more months.
