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US President Donald Trump says Russian President Vladimir Putin has '10 to 12 days' to agree Ukraine ceasefire

US President Donald Trump says Russian President Vladimir Putin has '10 to 12 days' to agree Ukraine ceasefire

Sky News AU4 days ago
United States President Donald Trump has declared Russian President Vladimir Putin has just "10 to 12 days" to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine.
President Trump had earlier threatened the Kremlin with "very severe" tariffs unless it halted its invasion within 50 days.
However, Russian officials gave little indication they were taking the threat seriously, with fighting in Ukraine showing no signs of easing.
As a result, the US President used a meeting with United Kingdom Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday, local time, to declare he was shortening the window in which the Kremlin needed to agree a halt to the conflict.
"I'm going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today," President Trump told reporters after the meeting.
"There's no reason in waiting, those 50 days I wanted to be generous but we just don't see any progress being made."
The Kremlin did not immediately comment on the new deadline and it remains unclear how far President Trump is willing to push his Russian counterpart given what he describes as a good relationship between the two.
When announcing his original deadline, the US President said he would move to impose "100 per cent" tariffs on Russian exports as well as so-called secondary sanctions, which target third countries that buy a nation's exports.
The President appeared to reiterate that threat on Monday, saying "it would be sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs" when asked about the consequences of failing to meet his deadline.
Despite this, President Trump also suggested he believed President Putin would be unmoved by the new timeline, hinting he had cut the window to negotiate a ceasefire because he knew "what the answer is going to be".
He also expressed fresh frustration with the Russian leader, who has repeatedly derailed the US President's claim he would end the conflict within "24 hours" of winning the 2024 election.
"We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever," President Trump said.
"That's not the way to do it."
In spite of the latest threat, many analysts remain sceptical President Trump will follow through with his plan to impose tariffs and secondary sanctions.
The President has often failed to back up tough talk with actions on Russia and has in past repeated Kremlin talking points which seek to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Imposing secondary sanctions could also complicate President Trump's efforts to secure trade deals with a host of nations and would likely require international cooperation from Europe in order to effectively enforce.
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The US economy keeps chugging along. Does everyone owe Trump an apology?
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The US economy keeps chugging along. Does everyone owe Trump an apology?

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The US economy keeps chugging along. Does everyone owe Trump an apology?
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The US economy keeps chugging along. Does everyone owe Trump an apology?

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Trump orders nuclear submarines moved near Russia
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