Rubio warned about the possibility of tougher sanctions against Moscow by Congress

Congress may soon impose new sanctions on Russia in the absence of results in negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. The corresponding statement was made on May 17 by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

"We have repeatedly warned Russia for almost two months that this will happen if progress is not made. So I think it's becoming a reality now," he said in an interview with CBS News.

According to Rubio, the bill to tighten sanctions against Russia in the Senate will have 80 co-sponsors and a comparable percentage of support in the House of Representatives.

The head of the department added that the administration of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, asked lawmakers to give time for negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement to demonstrate their progress.

Package by package: The EU is determined to stop all trade with Russia

Experts assessed the likelihood of a radical scenario with the severance of trade ties.

The day before, Reuters reported that lawmakers in the United States had increased pressure on Congress to approve new sanctions against Russia after talks between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul. It is clarified that the senators stated that there was insufficient progress in the negotiations on a cease-fire and again turned to the idea of tightening restrictive measures.

On the same day, the American leader said that he did not rule out the imposition of sanctions against Russia "if necessary," but would prefer to avoid such measures.

On May 16, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the talks agreed to present their vision of a cease-fire and to exchange prisoners of war in the 1,000-by-1,000 format.