US President Donald Trump again expressed frustration yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the intensifying Ukraine conflict, a day after warning that Putin was “playing with fire” by resisting ceasefire talks while escalating drone and missile attacks.
But Trump also told reporters in the Oval Office that he was not yet prepared to impose new sanctions on Russia because he did not want the penalties to scuttle a potential peace deal.
Russia has proposed holding the next round of direct talks with Ukraine on June 2 in Istanbul, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday. There was no immediate response from Kyiv.
The public squabble between the US and Russia unfolded as the three-year-old war heats up, with swarms of drones launched by both Russia and Ukraine and Russian troops advancing at key points along the front.
Delegates from Russia and Ukraine met earlier this month in Istanbul under pressure from Trump to end the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Second World War, but the talks failed to yield the ceasefire that Kyiv and its Western allies have pushed for. Moscow said certain conditions needed to be met before a ceasefire agreement.
Asked whether the Russian leader might be intentionally delaying negotiations, Trump said, “We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not, and if he is, we’ll respond a little differently.”
After speaking to Trump on May 19, Putin said he had agreed to work with Ukraine on a memorandum which would set out the contours of a peace accord including the timing of a ceasefire.
Putin’s demands for ending the war include a written pledge from Western leaders that Nato will not expand eastward to former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia and the lifting of some sanctions on Russia, according to Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations.
In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump had warned Putin that he was “playing with fire” and that “really bad” things would have happened to Russia already if not for Trump himself.
Russia said it had downed 296 Ukrainian drones over 13 regions overnight, while Ukraine’s military said it had struck several Russian weapon production sites. Ukraine said Russia had launched 88 drones and five ballistic missiles.
&uuid=(email))