Updated: 10/23/2025 08:27 AM EST

As Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its 45th month, President Donald Trump stated Tuesday that he will not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest to discuss peace terms as previously planned, with the U.S. president remarking that he did not want to conduct a “wasted meeting” with the intractable Russian autocrat after the regime signaled that it would not back away from demanding control of vast swaths of Ukrainian territory. Experts say the U.S. must sanction countries that buy Russian energy in order to dry up Putin’s means of funding the war.

On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio conducted a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in which Lavrov insisted that any peace settlement would have to involve Ukraine giving up its Donbas region — over 20,500 square miles of territory. Lavrov later told reporters that “Russia’s position has remained largely unchanged over time and remains within the bounds of its initial maximalist demands.”

After Rubio advised the White House that a Trump-Putin summit would likely not result in peace terms, the president remarked, “I don’t want to … waste time till [I] see what happens,” further stating that he would announce a new strategy to end the war within the next few days.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil. A Treasury Department press release stated that the actions “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy.” The sanctions will also affect dozens of the two companies’ subsidiaries, specifying that any entity that Rosneft and Lukoil own more than a 50% stake in will be blocked.

Experts like Peter Doran, who serves as an adjunct senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, say that Moscow will continue to string the U.S. along without committing to any meaningful compromise for as long as possible.

“We are seeing a clear pattern from Vladimir Putin,” he observed during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Tuesday. “President Trump will have a very good call with Putin. It seems like the prospect for peace is on the table. And then once the diplomats get down to the nitty gritty, get down to the details, Putin says, ‘Nope, I want my maximalist demands.’ And right now, that demand includes the destruction of Ukraine as a country. Obviously, that’s not something [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky can stomach.”

As for how the U.S. can move Russia toward ending the war, Doran argued that a “very clear” course of action can be taken by the president “mak[ing] good on his promise of peace through strength.”

“What needs to happen is that President Trump needs to draw a line,” he contended. “He needs to say ‘no more’ and use the economic power of the United States to squeeze Putin’s oil revenue. We have that ability. Let’s recall that there are many countries around the world that continue to buy oil from Russia. Think about Europe right now — Hungary, Austria, Slovakia. They are funding this war by buying Russian oil, and at the same time the European Union is sending Ukraine weapons. So the Europeans are essentially playing both sides here. That’s got to stop. President Trump can drop secondary sanctions on countries.”

Meanwhile, Trump signaled last week that he is contemplating arming Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles in order to give the country a potential battlefield advantage and to give them the capability of striking targets deep within Russia. But during a meeting with Zelensky days later, the president appeared to backtrack, stating, “We’re going to be talking about Tomahawks, and would much rather have them not need Tomahawks. Would much rather have the war be over, to be honest.”

Doran emphasized that Tomahawks alone would not be enough to end the conflict. “Yes, they can strike deep inside of Russian territory. Yes, they can hit military targets like Russian oil refineries. But they’re not a silver bullet,” he insisted. “No single weapon system is going to produce an end to this war. This war ends when Vladimir Putin no longer has the money to pay for this war, to pay for recruiting new soldiers. And that’s where our secondary sanctions and America’s economic might must come into play in order to create peace, finally.”

Doran further argued that pressuring Europe to move away from Russian oil could prove to be economically beneficial for the U.S. “In order to demonstrate American economic might, we need to drill more,” he underscored. “We need to produce our own oil, our own natural gas, and, when we can, sell it to other countries. So what President Trump is setting up here is a win for the U.S. economy, a win for the Ukrainians, and frankly, a win for Europeans who will live in a safer neighborhood.”

As for what a potential timeline could look like for when Trump may begin to apply sanctions to European buyers of Russian energy, Doran stressed that they should happen sooner rather than later.

“It should have happened weeks ago,” he maintained. “President Trump has already said he was prepared to do this. Secretary [Scott] Bessent and the Treasury Department are on the line of scrimmage. They are ready to pull the trigger. It needs a go-ahead from President Trump. And I think what we’ve seen from the Russians over the last 24 hours is that they are clearly not ready for peace. They’re clearly not ready to deal. That’s why President Trump must absolutely make good on his threat and pull the trigger on secondary sanctions.”