GENEVA — A top-tier international commodities trader has dropped plans to buy the international assets of Russia oil company Lukoil as it rejected U.S. government allegations of being “the Kremlin’s puppet.”
Trading firm Gunvor, whose main trading office is in Geneva, announced on X that it’s withdrawing its proposal to acquire the Lukoil assets, a deal that the Russian company announced last week. Lukoil said it agreed to the deal, pending some conditions — including permission from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC. Terms of the deal were not specified.
On the same social media platform late Thursday, the Treasury Department alluded to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send Russian troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 and U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war, which has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people.
“President Trump has been clear that the war must end immediately,” the department’s post on X said. “As long as Putin continues the senseless killings, the Kremlin’s puppet, Gunvor, will never get a license to operate and profit.”
Gunvor