Trump tells Putin to end ‘ridiculous war’ in Ukraine or face new sanctions
Eastern European reporter reporting from Kyiv
ReutersU.S. President Trump has warned that he will impose high tariffs on Russian goods and impose further sanctions if Russia fails to end the war in Ukraine.
He wrote on his social media platform, “Truth Social,” that he had done Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, “a great favor” by pushing for a resolution to the war.
Trump has previously said he would negotiate within a day to resolve the conflict, which has erupted since a full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
Russia has yet to respond to the remarks, but senior officials have said in recent days that Moscow’s chances of dealing with the new U.S. administration are slim.
Putin has repeatedly said he is ready to negotiate an end to the war, but Ukraine must accept Russia’s acquisition of territory, which currently accounts for about 20% of its land. Meanwhile, Kyiv has said it is not ready to give up territory.
On Tuesday, Trump told a news conference that he would be talking to Putin “very soon” and that it “sounded very likely” he would impose more sanctions if the Russian leader did not join the talks.
But in a Truth Society post on Wednesday, he went further: “I would do Russia, whose economy is in decline, and President Putin is a great boon,” he wrote.
“Settle it now and stop this ridiculous war! Things are only going to get worse. If we don’t reach a deal soon I have no choice but to impose high taxes, tariffs and sanctions on anything Russia sells to The United States and various other participating countries.”
He continued: “Let’s end this war. If I were president, this war would never have started! We can do it the easy way, and we can do it the hard way – the easy way. It’s always better. Now it’s time to “make a deal”.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, earlier told Reuters the Kremlin needed to know what Trump wanted in a deal to stop the war before the country could move forward.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that any deal would require at least 200,000 peacekeepers.
He also told Bloomberg that any peacekeeping force in his country must include U.S. troops to constitute a realistic deterrent to Russia.
“It’s impossible without the United States… Even if some European friends think it can be done, it won’t be,” he said, adding that no one would risk such a move without the United States.
While Ukrainian leaders may appreciate the tough-talking Trump — they have long said that Putin knows only strength — Kyiv’s initial reaction to the U.S. president’s remarks suggests that actions, not words, are what people are waiting for.
Trump did not specify where or when more financial penalties might be imposed. Russian imports to the United States have dropped significantly since 2022, and various strict restrictions have been put in place.
Currently, Russia’s main exports to the United States are phosphate fertilizers and platinum.
USEPAOn social media, Ukrainians generally responded harshly. Many see more sanctions as a weak response to Russian aggression. But for most, the big question is what Putin is actually willing to discuss with Ukraine in any peace talks.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, some are seeing signs that the Kremlin may be prepared to accept less than the “victory” once envisioned, including tanks heading west toward the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa.
Margarita Simonyan, a staunchly pro-Putin TV editor, has begun talking about “realistic” conditions for ending the war, which she suggested could include halting fighting on the current front lines.
This means that four Ukrainian regions that Putin illegally declared as Russian territory more than two years ago, such as Zaporozhye, remain partly under Kiev’s control.
Russian hardliners, the so-called “Z” bloggers, are outraged by this “defeatism.”
In his social media posts, Trump also used his “love” for the Russian people to express his threats of tariffs and tougher sanctions and emphasized his respect for the Soviet Union’s losses in World War II – which An almost sacred subject for Putin – even though Trump vastly overestimated Russia’s losses in World War II. numbers and seemed to think the Soviet Union was just Russia. In fact, millions of Ukrainians and other Soviet citizens also lost their lives.
That said, the man who previously said he could “understand” Russia’s concerns about Ukraine’s NATO membership — which to Kyiv was tantamount to saying Putin was enraged — does appear to be changing his tone.
Trump’s position matters. But after 11 years of war with Russia and a history of poor peace deals, Ukrainians are not hopeful.
