Trump may fast-track sanctions on Russia
Speaking to reporters outside the White House before embarking on a trip to Scotland, Trump said that secondary sanctions, which would impose tariffs on countries and entities doing business with Russia, could be expedited.
'It could be that we'll have to put secondary sanctions on,' Trump stated. Asked whether the sanctions could materialize before the 50-day deadline to end the Ukraine conflict runs out on September 3, the US president said he could 'maybe' opt to do so.
Moscow has previously said that Trump's new sanctions threats serve primarily 'as signals to continue war' for Kiev and urged the US to put pressure on Ukraine instead. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that the 'hypothetical arrival' of secondary sanctions would not impact Moscow's policy and that Russia would 'continue to move along our independent, sovereign, and sustained path.'
The US president also insisted a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's leader, Vladimir Zelensky, would eventually happen. Trump did not provide a timeframe on when that might occur.
'It's going to happen. But it should have happened three months ago. It's going to happen,' he told reporters.
Moscow has insisted that a potential Putin-Zelensky meeting should only deal with final agreements rather than preliminary discussions. Speaking to reporters earlier on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the groundwork had to be laid first.
'A summit meeting can and should put a final point in the settlement and record the modalities and agreements that are to be developed in the course of expert work. It is impossible to do the opposite,' Peskov stressed.
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