US President Donald Trump has criticized Vladimir Putin for the latest deadly air strikes in Ukraine, signaling disappointment with Moscow even when the White House increases the pressure on Kyiv to accept a de facto change in its borders.
“I’m not happy with the Russian attacks in Kyiv,” Trump wrote on his social truth platform on Thursday. “Not necessary and very bad time. Vladimir, stop! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s do the Peace Agreement!”
Trump’s comments came after Russia’s largest and largest bombing of the Ukrainian capital per month, who killed at least 12 people and injured more than 90 others.
Russia began strikes while Trump was criticizing Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for holding his peace plan.
Trump’s disappointment with Putin-which he has been significantly less ready to blame for the war than Zelenskyy-indicates his struggle to make the Russian president agree with his proposals and to submit the promise to bring the war with a long year of Russia to a quick end.
Speaking at a press conference in South Africa, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was already making a big concession expressing his willingness to negotiate with Putin after a complete ceasefire was agreed.
The obvious US willingness to make major concessions to Russia has alarmed KYIV and its European allies such as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who will later ask the Trump administration not to force Ukraine to accept a peace agreement against its will.
Rutte will use meetings with Trump’s close aides to argue that an unjust solution of peace that attracts Russia will increase Moscow’s threat to Europe, three informed officials said.
Rutte’s long-standing visit to Washington, largely focused on preparations for the NATO leaders’ summit in June, comes a day after Trump advised Zelenskyy to refuse to make concessions and agree with a proposal to KRIME Russia’s occupation.
Rutte will use meetings with Trump Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to emphasize that European security will also be at risk if a pro-part solution is bound in Kyiv, people said.
“The main message is to make Americans understand what is under discussion,” said a NATO diplomat. Rutte will also discuss how to better coordinate by shifting the burden of NATO’s protection for Europe by the US military, people said.
Moreover, other Western leaders are increasing efforts to influence Trump’s strict position. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will “capture” any chance of talking to Trump at Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, her spokesman said on Thursday.
European countries are afraid that Trump’s insistence on recognizing Russia’s control for Crimea will put them in opposition to the White House as moving closer to Moscow.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told reporters on Thursday that Trump’s stay in the peninsula, which Russia occupied and forcibly annexed by Ukraine in 2014, “completely matches the Russian position”.
Russia has offered to give up some of Putin’s remaining claims in the territory of Ukraine that is not under its control, but has shown no tendency to agree on any peace agreement unless its essential requirements are met.
“President Putin supports the achievement of peace by ensuring the interests of our country. This is a mandatory situation,” Peskov said, according to Newswire Tass.
Peskov also ruled to accept a European peacekeeping presence in Ukraine, which is part of the plan that the US presented to Ukraine and its allies in Paris last week.
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Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, is expected to meet Putin in Moscow this week for the fourth time this year.
Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Zelenskyy as Ukraine resists agreeing on Putin’s demands, which would essentially force him to cease to be an independent functional state.
“He may have peace, or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole country,” Trump told Zelenskyy in a post on social truth on Wednesday. “We are very close to a deal, but the man with” no letters to play “should now, finally, do it,” he added, describing the situation for Ukraine as “bad”.
Later on Wednesday Trump again broadcast his disappointment with Zelenskyy, telling reporters in the Oval office that he “thought it could be easier to deal with than Russian President Vladimir Putin but” so far, it has been more difficult. ”
Zelenskyy said he would cut his trip to the short South Africa and return to Kyiv shortly after bombing at night.
He said Russia had launched about 70 missiles, including ballistic ones, and about 150 offensive drones in his country. “Unfortunately, there is considerable destruction,” he said.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed to have targeted Ukraine’s planes, rockets, machinery and tanks, as well as fuel and gunpowder sites.
Additional reporting by Alice Hancock to Brussels
