WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump's administration announced Wednesday new “massive sanctions” against Russia's oil industry that are aimed at moving Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table and bringing an end to Moscow's brutal war on Ukraine.

The sanctions against oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil followed months of calls from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as bipartisan pressure on Trump to hit Russia with harder sanctions on its oil industry, the economic engine that has allowed Russia to continue to execute the grinding conflict even as it finds itself largely internationally isolated.

“Hopefully he’ll become reasonable,” Trump said of Putin not long after the Treasury Department announced the sanctions against Russia's two biggest oi

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