By ANDREW GRAY, SAM TABAHRITI and SUSAN HEAVEY Reuters
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BRUSSELS/LONDON/WASHINGTON — The EU and Britain announced new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday without waiting for Washington to join them, a day after President Donald Trump’s phone call with Vladimir Putin brought about neither a ceasefire in Ukraine nor fresh U.S. sanctions.

London and Brussels said their new measures would zero in on Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and financial firms that have helped it avoid the impact of other sanctions imposed over the war.

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“Sanctions matter, and I am grateful to everyone who makes them more tangible for the perpetrators of the war,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.

He said it “would be good” if the United States added its help, adding: “It is important that America remain involved in the process of bringing peace closer.”

The sanctions were unveiled without an immediate announcement of corresponding steps from Washington, despite intense public lobbying from European leaders for the Trump administration to join them if Russia rejected a ceasefire.

“We have repeatedly made it clear that we expect one thing from Russia — an immediate ceasefire without preconditions,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on the sidelines of a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels.

As Russia had not accepted a ceasefire, “we will have to react,” he said. “We also expect our U.S. allies not to tolerate this.”

Trump told reporters on Tuesday he was deliberating over what actions to take, but gave no further details.

“We’re looking at a lot of things, but we’ll see,” he said.

In a two-hour conversation with Putin on Monday, the U.S. president dropped his earlier insistence on an unconditional 30-day ceasefire and signaled that the war he once promised to end in 24 hours was no longer his to fix — a message that leaves Ukraine vulnerable and its allies worried.

Asked on Monday why he had not imposed fresh sanctions to push Moscow into a peace deal, Trump said that could make the situation worse and affect the chance of a deal, while adding: “But there could be a time where that’s going to happen.”