Trump says Putin may not want to make a deal on Ukraine

Monitoring Desk

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he hoped Russia’s Vladimir Putin would move forward on ending the war in Ukraine but conceded that the Kremlin leader may not want to make a deal at all, adding this would create a “rough situation” for Putin.

In an interview with a TV channel, Trump said he expected that Putin’s course of action would become clear in the next couple of weeks. Trump also again ruled out American boots on the ground in Ukraine and gave no specifics about the security guarantees he has previously said Washington could offer Kyiv under any post-war settlement.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem (reaching a peace deal), to be honest with you. I think Putin is tired of it. I think they’re all tired of it, but you never know,” Trump said.

“We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks … It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal,” said Trump, who has previously threatened more sanctions on Russia and nations that buy its oil if Putin does not make peace.

Ukraine and its European allies have been buoyed by Trump’s promise of security guarantees to help end the war during an extraordinary summit on Monday but face many unanswered questions, including how willing Russia will be to play ball.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed Monday’s talks at the White House with the U.S. president as a “major step forward” towards ending Europe’s deadliest conflict in 80 years and towards setting up a trilateral meeting with Putin and Trump in the coming weeks.

Zelenskiy was flanked by the leaders of allies including Germany, France and Britain at the summit and his warm rapport with Trump contrasted sharply with their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February.

But beyond the optics, the path to peace remains deeply uncertain and Zelenskiy may be forced to make painful compromises to end the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Analysts say more than 1 million people have been killed or wounded in the conflict.

While the Washington talks allowed for a temporary sense of relief in Kyiv, there was no let-up in the fighting. Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said, the largest this month. The energy ministry said Russia had targeted energy facilities in the central Poltava region, home to Ukraine’s only oil refinery, causing big fires.

“The good news is that there was no blow-up (at the White House). Trump didn’t demand Ukrainian capitulation nor cut off support. The mood music was positive and the trans-Atlantic alliance lives on,” John Foreman, a former British defence attache to Kyiv and Moscow, told Reuters.

“On the downside, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the nature of security guarantees and what exactly the U.S. has in mind.”