Trump appears to set Putin ‘two-week’ deadline on Ukraine
(BBC) US President Donald Trump has appeared to set a two-week deadline for Vladimir Putin, threatening a different response if the Russian counterpart was still stringing him along.
As the Kremlin escalated its attacks on Ukraine, Trump was asked in the Oval Office on Wednesday if he thought Putin wanted to end the war.
“I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks,” Trump told reporters, the latest amid a string of critical public remarks made by Trump about Putin.
Since Sunday, Trump has written multiple posts on social media saying that Putin has gone “absolutely crazy” and is “playing with fire” after Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine.
The bombardments by Russia are said to have been some of the largest and deadliest attacks since the start of the war, now in its fourth year.
Russian strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more, including children, over the weekend.
And by Wednesday, the attacks had shown no signs of slowing down.
In Trump’s remarks about the escalation of violence and whether he thinks Putin is serious about ending the war, Trump said: “I’ll let you know in about two weeks.
“Within two weeks. We’re gonna find out whether or not (Putin is) tapping us along or not.
“And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently.”
The comments are a sign of Trump’s growing frustration, as the White House’s repeated efforts to negotiate a deal between Russia and Ukraine appear ever more futile.
This includes a recent two-hour phone call between Trump and Putin, after which the US president said the discussions went “very well”.
Putin walked away from the call saying he was ready to work with Ukraine on a “memorandum on a possible future peace agreement”.
That call was one week before Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles towards Ukraine’s capital, according to Ukraine’s air force.
And a memorandum has yet to be produced by Russia.