Corrects nature of president's request.
President Barack Obama will urge European leaders next week to extend existing sanctions on Russia for allegedly failing to fully implement a cease-fire accord in Ukraine.
Obama will travel to Krun, Germany, on 7 June for a two-day meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized economies in the wake of a new round of violence in Ukraine.
While conferring with his counterparts from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan, Obama will call on European leaders to continue the measures against Moscow when the European Council convenes on 25-26 June.
"The president will be making the case to his European colleagues that the EU should move ahead and extend sanctions when they meet at the end of this month," White House senior director for European affairs Charles Kupchan said yesterday.
US officials say Russia is violating the terms and the spirit of the Minsk accord by allegedly sending heavy weapons into Ukraine and bolstering pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Kupchan said Obama will discuss how the US and its allies can put additional pressure on Moscow.
But the European Council meeting comes at a delicate moment, when the US, UK, France and Germany will be counting on Russia and China to remain united with them as they try to reach a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran before a 30 June deadline.
White House officials expect the G7 members to reaffirm their support of sanctions against Russia, both to prod Moscow to do more to implement the Minsk agreement and to discourage intervention in Ukraine.
In December, the US Congress passed new legislation giving Obama authority to sanction companies around the globe that make "significant" investments in projects to develop Russia's deepwater, arctic or shale oil reserves. That statute authorizes Obama to target companies, including banks, that help Russia extract crude from formations located in water depths greater than 500ft (152m), from the arctic offshore or from shale formations.
That legislation went beyond a US Treasury Department measure imposed two months earlier, that barred US companies from exporting goods, services or technology that helps Russia tap its deepwater, arctic offshore or shale oil resources.
Treasury's action forced ExxonMobil to wind down its operations in the Kara Sea. ExxonMobil and Russia's state-owned Rosneft had begun drilling the Universitetskaya structure at the Kara Sea's East Prinovozemelsky 1 block.
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