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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled that sanctions relief for Russia could be on the table in talks over the Ukraine war, saying the U.S. is prepared to either ramp up or take down penalties based on Russia’s willingness to negotiate.
Bessent said this in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Ukrinform reports.
“That’d be a very good characterization. The president is committed to ending this conflict very quickly,” he said in response to a question about the potential for adjustments in either direction.
Bessent said some recent remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggesting that U.S. President Donald Trump is misinformed about the war were “inappropriate.”
Bessent said Zelenskyy had assured him ahead of the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that Ukraine would sign a $500 billion deal handing over rights to Ukrainian minerals but has not signed yet.
“The sequencing of what was going to happen was: bring the Ukrainians closer to the U.S. through economic ties, convince the American people, the American public, get them onside. And then tell the Russians, go to the negotiating table with a very fulsome message that if we need to, we will take sanctions up,” he said.
He also stressed that the U.S., with greater economic interest in Ukraine, provides a “security shield.”
