Ukraine war briefing: Sanctions waiver on Russian oil could end soon, Trump suggests

By Warren Murray with Guardian writers and agencies • June 17, 2026 • World news

Hopeful mood on war among European leaders at G7 summit; two crew killed in Ukrainian bomber plane crash. What we know on day 1,575

The US could soon reinstate sanctions on Russian oil shipments, Donald Trump indicated, as leaders at the G7 summit moved on Tuesday to put the war in Ukraine back on top of their agenda. Trump said the sanctions on Russia – partly waived by the US due to the Iran war, ostensibly to help lower oil prices – can go back in place as more oil moves through the strait of Hormuz. “Soon we’ll be able to do that because the oil is now flowing. We’re in a position to do that soon.” Russia should make peace with Ukraine, the US president said after a “very good” meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Look, Russia should make a deal,” Trump told reporters, adding that too many young men were dying on the battlefield on both sides. “I’m gonna do whatever I can.” The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said of Trump’s statement: “I found him to be very cooperative, and ‌I also saw him listening very attentively. And ‌in that respect, once again, it gives me a certain degree of optimism that we here, as Europeans and as Americans, are now doing everything we can, together, to end the war.” Zelenskyy told Reuters that G7 leaders agreed Russia was not winning the war and they discussed additional sanctions targeting Russia’s oil exports, its banking sector and its military production. Two European diplomats, however, told Reuters that Trump had been noncommittal on imposing further US sanctions on Moscow. A French diplomat said G7 leaders committed to providing Kyiv with more air defence capabilities. A Ukrainian ⁠Su-24M bomber aircraft crashed on a mission in ⁠the Khmelnitskyi region ⁠in western Ukraine on Tuesday ⁠and its two-member crew was killed, ⁠the Ukrainian air ‌force said. Ukraine is estimated to have about a dozen of the ageing SU-24 family of warplanes. They are used to launch the Scalp/Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied by Britain and France. Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least eight people on Tuesday, officials said. A drone strike in Nikopol, central Dnipropetrovsk region, killed “a mother and son – a woman of 87 and a 51-year-old man” as well as a third person not immediately identified, said the regional governor, Oleksandr Hanzha. “The enemy targeted people ‌walking along the road with an FPV drone,” Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram. He posted a blurred photo of a wheelchair on a ‌road and what appeared to be a body underneath. Russian shelling of the Donetsk region city of Sloviansk killed three people, while drone strikes on the southern Kherson region killed two people and wounded 16, according to officials. Five Russian ⁠attacks on the ⁠south-eastern Ukrainian ⁠city of Zaporizhzhia left one ⁠person dead, three injured and set ablaze ⁠a home ‌and a ‌shopping centre, ‌said Ivan Fedorov, the regional governor. Repairs to the nearly 1,000-year-old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery in Kyiv could take around two years, an official said ⁠on Tuesday. A ⁠Russian attack on the complex set fire to the roof of the Dormition Cathedral within ⁠the vast Unesco world heritage site. More than ‌80% of the 11th-century cathedral’s roof had been damaged, but firefighters managed to prevent the fire from spreading inside the cathedral, Maksym Ostapenko, director general of the complex, was cited as saying by Interfax Ukraine news agency. A Russian artist critical of Vladimir Putin and the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been shot and killed in ⁠the eastern Polish town of Biała Podlaska, a prosecutor has said. Local media identified the victim as Robert ⁠Kuzovkov, who was also known by his artistic pseudonym, Semyon Skrepetsky. Pjotr Sauer writes that five shots were fired at the ⁠victim, including one ⁠to the head, in the attack on Monday, according to Marcin Kozak, a spokesperson for the district prosecutor in Lublin. Two Belarusians ⁠had been detained but no one had yet been charged. Other Russian exiles suspected Kadyrov was responsible. The Chinese ⁠embassy in London said it had complained to British ⁠authorities about sanctions on several entities, including four from ⁠China, for allegedly supplying key military equipment to Russia. “China has consistently promoted peace talks and strictly controlled exports of dual-use goods,” an embassy spokesperson said. “Normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Russia should ⁠not be disrupted or affected.” Britain’s latest sanctions package, announced on Tuesday, includes cracking down on third-country suppliers of critical military equipment to Russia in China, Thailand and Turkey. The US extended by 15 days until 1 July a sanctions waiver on Serbia’s Russian-controlled oil company NIS, allowing it to continue importing and processing crude, the firm said. Washington has demanded since early 2025 that Russia’s sanctioned Gazprom Neft sell it stake in NIS, which has been threatened by US financial sanctions that have been repeatedly postponed. Talks on the sale of the Russian-held stake in NIS to Hungary’s MOL energy company have gone on for months, with the US Treasury’s foreign assets control office extending the deadline for their completion until 16 June.

Source: The Guardian