US President Donald Trump renewed a threat to impose sanctions on Russia yesterday if there is no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks, showing frustration at Moscow a week after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
“I’m going to make a decision as to what we do and it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it’s your fight,” Trump said.
He was unhappy about Russia’s deadly strike on a factory in Ukraine this week, he said.
“I’m not happy about it, and I’m not happy about anything having to do with that war,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, meanwhile, said yesterday that Russia was doing everything it could to prevent a meeting between him and Putin, while Russia’s foreign minister said the agenda for such a meeting was not ready.
Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for Putin to meet him, saying it is the only way to negotiate an end to the war.
Trump had said he had begun the arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskiy meeting after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that followed their Alaska meeting on August 15.
Zelenskiy accused Russia of stalling.
“The Russians are doing everything they can to prevent the meeting from taking place,” he said yesterday at a press conference in Kyiv with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte.
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