US Will Soon Announce ‘Substantial Pickup In Russia Sanctions’: Treasury Secretary

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday announced that the White House will be announcing “a substantial pickup in Russia sanctions”.

“We are going to either announce after the close this afternoon— or first thing tomorrow morning, a substantial pickup in Russia sanctions,” Bessent told reporters at the White House Wednesday afternoon.

“You’ll have to wait and see what it is,” he added.

CNN quoted a White House official as saying that the President is expected to announce a significant uptick in new sanctions related to Russia. The sanctions are not expected to be about China.

Barely a week ago, US President Donald Trump announced that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would meet in Budapest “within two weeks or so.”

However, by Tuesday,

the White House confirmed that the meeting would no longer take place. Plans for a preparatory in-person dialogue between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were also scrapped. “I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I don’t want to have a waste of time, so I’ll see what happens.”

A White House official, speaking to Politico, explained that “Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call. Therefore, an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov downplayed the cancellation, telling reporters, “You cannot postpone what has not been scheduled.”

The abrupt U-turn has exposed a diplomatic freeze that continues to define US–Russia interactions over Ukraine. It also highlights the persistent gap between Trump’s high-profile peace efforts and the hardened positions on both sides of the conflict.

Russia continues to reject ceasefire proposals based on existing battle lines. Ukraine remains unwilling to give up territory. And Trump, while promoting himself as a peacemaker, has not been able to shift either side’s core demands.