U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday increased pressure on Russia to finish its war in Ukraine, saying he was setting a brand new deadline of 10 to 12 days for Moscow to make progress on doing so.
“I’m disillusioned in President Putin,” Trump said, speaking alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ahead of their meeting in Scotland. “I’m going to scale back that fifty days that I gave him to a lesser number because I feel I already know the reply what’s going to occur.”
Trump set the 50-day deadline earlier this month. The U.S. president has repeatedly voiced exasperation with Putin for continuing attacks on Ukraine despite U.S. efforts to finish the war.
Before returning to the White House in January, Trump, who views himself as a peacemaker, had promised to finish the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict inside 24 hours.
Trump has threatened recent sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports unless an agreement is reached by early September.
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However the president, who has also expressed annoyance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has not all the time followed up on his tough speak about Putin with motion, citing what he deems an excellent relationship that the 2 men have had previously.
“We thought we had that settled quite a few times, after which President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills quite a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever,” Trump said. “And I say that’s not the strategy to do it.”
—Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Andrea Shalal in Scotland; additional reporting by Jeff Mason and William James; writing by Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; editing by Doina Chiacu and Mark Heinrich