President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin has “really” let him down in regards to halted efforts to explore a path to peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Speaking during a press conference with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Trump admitted that bringing an end to the war, which started when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, has been harder than he envisioned. [Trump had initially vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine war on “day one” of his second term.]
“The one that I thought would be easiest, because of my relationship with President Putin [was] Russia and Ukraine… But he’s let me down. He’s really let me down,” Trump said on Thursday on his second state visit to the U.K., during which he signed a billion-dollar U.K.-U.S. Tech Prosperity Deal.
“He’s killing many people, and he’s losing more… frankly, the Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers,” Trump said of Putin’s position in the war.
Trump travelled to Alaska in August for a “high-stakes” summit with Putin, their first in-person meeting since 2019. The summit was intended to foster discussions about a path toward a potential cease-fire, but it ended earlier than expected and without any deal being reached. Trump and Putin spoke only briefly to reporters afterwards, and neither took any questions.
Since then, Trump has made various vows to increase sanctions on Russia, especially as the country has continued its fierce airstrikes, including ones that targeted part of the office of the Ukrainian government earlier this month. The Kremlin responded to Trump’s threat by saying that sanctions imposed by Western countries on Russia have “no effect.”
However, Trump recently backed away from his threat, saying he’ll only sanction Russia when all NATO countries stop buying oil from Russia and place tariffs on China.
When asked about the status of sanctions on Russia on Thursday, Trump mentioned recent tariffs he had imposed on India for buying oil from Moscow, plus China for its support of Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.
“I’m willing to do other things, but not when the people that I’m fighting for are buying oil from Russia,” said Trump, adding that he was “disappointed” that some European countries continued to import Russian oil.
Starmer, a firm ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, urged Trump to increase his pressure on Putin.
“We talk about what might happen after a cease-fire, we mustn’t forget that Ukraine needs our support now,” said Starmer. “We’ve said we’ll stand with Ukraine from the start to finish, and that means we must continue to supply them with what they need in order to fight.”
“We’ve discussed today how we can build our defenses further to support Ukraine, and decisively increase the pressure on Putin to get him to agree a peace deal that will last,” Starmer added.
“We’re sending a lot of weapons to NATO. NATO is paying for those weapons in-full, but we’re sending them,” added Trump, who praised the U.K.’s commitment, alongside other NATO members, to spending 5% of GDP on defense per new spending targets announced at the organization’s summit earlier this year.
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