CNN
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President Donald Trump could move ahead with new sanctions on Russia in the coming days as he vents frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin for his aerial assault on Ukraine over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter.
Options were drawn up in the past several weeks to apply new measures punishing Moscow, but so far Trump has not approved them. The president said Sunday he would “absolutely” consider new sanctions in the aftermath of a sustained missile and drone bombardment that left many dead.
“He’s killing a lot of people,” Trump said of Putin on Sunday. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. What the hell happened to him?”
Trump could still decide not to apply the new sanctions, the people said, in keeping with past examples of him backing away from threats to target Russia over its actions in Ukraine. Trump has said privately he is concerned new sanctions could push Russia away from peace talks.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers are lobbying Trump to significantly ratchet up US sanctions after the weekend attacks.
“All of us, by our public statements as well as private contacts, are pressing very, very hard,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal told CNN on Monday.
Blumenthal is a key figure behind a cross-party Senate bill, also sponsored by Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, which aims to impose “crippling” new measures on Moscow. It would include “secondary sanctions,” like massive 500% tariffs on countries buying Russian energy. More than 80 senators have signed on to the bipartisan bill so far.
After speaking with Putin last week, Trump told European leaders on a telephone call that he would not join them, for now, in applying new measures on Moscow, even though he had previously signaled a willingness to take a tougher approach to Putin, a European official said.
Trump “believes, that right now if you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking, and there is value in us being able to talk to them and to drive them to get to the table,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, a day after Trump and Putin spoke over the phone. “Like we will see, look they have to do this, no one is claiming that this is a guarantee.”
After Trump’s most recent comments, French President Emmanuel Macron voiced hope the US leader would change course.
“President Trump realizes that when President Putin said on the phone he was ready for peace, or told his envoys he was ready for peace, he lied,” Macron said Monday. “We have seen once again in recent hours Donald Trump express his anger. A form of impatience. I simply hope now that this translates into action.”
Trmp has previously raised the notion of new sanctions on Russia’s banking sector and secondary sanctions on purchasers of Russian energy products. Both options have been drawn up, but it wasn’t clear what specific steps Trump was considering in the wake of Russia’s weekend bombardment in Ukraine.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
Matthew Chance contributed to this report.
