Russian President Vladimir Putin remains defiant after US President Donald Trump hit Russia's two biggest oil companies with sanctions to pressure the Kremlin leader to end the war in Ukraine, a move that pushed global oil prices up five per cent.

The US sanctions prompted Chinese state oil majors to suspend Russian oil purchases in the short term, trade sources told Reuters. Refiners in India, the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil, are set to sharply cut their crude imports, according to industry sources.

The sanctions target oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, which together account for more than five per cent of global oil output, and mark a dramatic U-turn by Trump, who said only last week that he and Putin would soon hold a summit in Budapest to try to end the war in Ukraine.

While

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