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President Trump reiterated his threat to hit Russia with further sanctions if there is no progress towards a peaceful settlement in Ukraine over the next two weeks.
Trump vented his frustration to reporters on Friday after his meeting with President Putin in Alaska didn’t lead to a breakthrough to end the three-and-a-half-year war.
“I’m going to make a decision as to what we do and it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it’s your fight,” the President said.
Before his meeting with Putin in Anchorage, Trump said he had taken sanctions off the table.
Trump also said he was angry about a Russian strike on an American factory in Ukraine this week, which injured workers.
“I’m not happy about it, and I’m not happy about anything having to do with that war,” Trump said.
President Trump then mentioned that Putin wanted to attend the World Cup 2026 tournament in the US.
“I’m going to sign this [a photograph of Trump and Putin in Alaska] for him. But I was sent one, and I thought you would like to see it, it’s a man named Vladimir Putin, who I believe will be coming, depending on what happens. He may be coming, and he may not, depending on what happens.”
Russia was banned from many international competitions after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the Russian national team has not taken part in qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
On Friday, President Putin said he believes President Trump will help bring an end to the conflict.
“With the arrival of President Trump, I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally loomed. And now we had a very good, meaningful and frank meeting in Alaska,” Putin said while touring a nuclear-research facility.
Meanwhile, President Zelensky accused Putin of stalling to end the war, saying the Russian leader would find ways to avoid meeting him face to face, as is now being planned.
“The meeting is one of the components of how to end the war,” Zelensky said on Friday at a press conference in Kyiv with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“And since they don’t want to end it, they will look for space to (avoid it).”
Russia’s demands for peace are now becoming clearer after the meeting between President Trump and Putin in Alaska.
While the summit did not produce a ceasefire, President Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that he and President Putin had discussed land transfers and security guarantees and had “largely agreed.”
Putin is said to have ruled out a temporary ceasefire until a full deal has been achieved. Zelensky has made a temporary ceasefire one of his key demands.
Russia would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Russia would also be prepared to relinquish tracts of land it occupies in northern Sumy and Kharkiv, the sources said.
Ukraine has rejected any notion of a retreat from areas including Donetsk, which Ukraine claims is a key bulwark against deeper Russian incursions into Ukraine.
It is also believed that Russia is seeking a formal recognition of its sovereignty over Crimea, which it took from Ukraine in 2014.
In addition, Putin expects sanctions against Russia to be lifted and a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO.
Other demands including official status for the Russian language in parts of Ukraine, and freedom for the Russian Orthodox Church to operate in the country.
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