Four days later, he lowered this to 10%, with the threat that he'd hike it back up again to 20% in July, depending on how trade negotiations pan out. And now Trump is threatening a future tariff of 50% on all goods from the EU.
Campaigners say governments in Europe and North America need to do more to stop Russian oil and gas from fuelling the war with Ukraine.Proceeds made from selling oil and gas are key to keeping Russia's war machine going.
Oil and gas account for almost a third of Russia's state revenue and more than 60% of its exports.In the wake of the February 2022 invasion, Ukraine's allies imposed sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. The US and UK banned Russian oil and gas, while the EU banned Russian seaborne crude imports, but not gas.Despite this, by 29 May, Russia had made more than €883bn ($973bn; £740bn) in revenue from fossil fuel exports since the start of the full-scale invasion, including €228bn from the sanctioning countries,
The lion's share of that amount, €209bn, came from EU member states.EU states continued importing pipeline gas directly from Russia until Ukraine cut the transit in January 2025, and Russian crude oil is still piped to Hungary and Slovakia.
Russian gas is still piped to Europe in increasing quantities via Turkey: CREA's data shows that its volume rose by 26.77% in January and February 2025 over the same period in 2024.
Hungary and Slovakia are also still receiving Russian pipeline gas via Turkey.In several posts on social media late on Sunday, Zelensky said he congratulated SBU head Vasyl Maliuk with the "absolutely brilliant result" of the operation.
He said that each of the 117 drones launched had its own pilot."The most interesting thing - and we can already say this publicly - is that the 'office' of our operation on Russian territory was located right next to the FSB of Russia in one of their regions," the Ukrainian president said.
The FSB is Russia's powerful state security service.Zelensky also said that all the people involved in the operation had been safely "led away" from Russia before the strikes.