MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin remained defiant on Thursday (Friday, Philippine time) after U.S. President Donald Trump hit Russia's two biggest oil companies with sanctions to pressure the Kremlin leader to end the war in Ukraine, a move that pushed global oil prices up 5%.

The U.S. sanctions prompted Chinese state oil majors to suspend Russian oil purchases in the short term, trade sources told Reuters. Refiners in India, the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil, are set to sharply cut their crude imports, according to industry sources.

The sanctions target oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, which together account for more than 5% of global oil output, and mark a dramatic U-turn by Trump, who said only last week that he and Putin would soon hold a summit in Budapest to try to end the war in Ukraine.

While the financi

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