President Trump said Saturday that he’s not entirely sure Russian strongman Vladimir Putin actually wants to end the bloody war in Ukraine and wondered whether he’s just been “tapping me along.”
Trump signaled that he now believes Putin must be “dealt with differently” now and floated the tightening of sanctions to change Russia’s attitude. The stark admission comes hours after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
Overnight into Thursday, Russia conducted a missile strike in Kyiv that killed 12 people and wounded 87. That came against the backdrop of other attacks on civilians in Sumy and elsewhere over recent weeks.
Amid Trump’s efforts to broker an end to the bloody war, Putin boasted Saturday that Moscow’s forces managed to regain control of the western Russian city of Kursk, which Ukraine captured last August in a surprising military operation.
Trump huddled with Zelensky in St. Peter’s Basilica ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral for about 15 minutes. Zelensky praised the encounter as a “good meeting” and released photos of the two men talking.
One photo showed Trump, Zelensky, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron embracing each other.
So far, neither side has revealed extensive details about what was discussed.
The meeting was Trump and Zelensky’s first face-to-face since the infamous Feb. 28 Oval Office blow-up that had been caught on camera.
During the February meeting, Zelensky had tried to impress upon Trump and Vice President JD Vance that Putin wasn’t sincere about pursuing peace and had a track record of violating his agreements.
Trump had been putting extensive pressure on Ukraine to back his peace efforts, even though that has pushed Kyiv into making uncomfortable concessions.
On Wednesday, for example, the president scolded Zelensky for being adamant that “Ukraine will not legally recognize the [Russian] occupation of Crimea.” Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Russia is now trying to conquer another fifth of Ukraine’s territory with its war efforts.
Trump added that Ukraine is in a “dire” situation and “can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country. Later that day, he mused that “I think Russia is ready” for a peace deal.
Ukraine had backed Trump’s plan for a monthlong ceasefire to negotiate an end to the war. Russia rejected it in favor of a more limited ceasefire on attacks against Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Reports have suggested that Trump’s team is considering giving Russia formal US recognition of Crimea, “de facto” recognition of four Ukrainian regions Russia is illegally occupying, a vow that Ukraine will not join NATO and the lifting of sanctions.
“Stopping the war, stopping from taking the whole country, pretty big concession,” Trump told reporters Thursday about the compromises Russia is supposedly making.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Russia on Friday.
“This is Sleepy Joe Biden’s War, not mine,” Trump added on Truth Social Saturday. “It was a loser from day one, and should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened if I were President at the time.”
“I’m just trying to clean up the mess that was left to me by Obama and Biden, and what a mess it is.”
Trump also raged against the New York Times’ coverage of his peace efforts, seething at an analysis piece that concluded he was playing right “into Putin’s hands.”
“Liddle’ Peter Baker, the very biased and untalented writer for The Times, followed his Editor’s demands and wrote that Ukraine should get back territory, including, I suppose, Crimea, and other ridiculous requests, in order to stop the killing that is worse than anything since World War II,” Trump chided.
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