Trump flags Russian retaliation, plays down peace talks after Putin call

Sydney Morning Herald

2 days ago

On Wednesday, shortly before Trump posted about his call with Putin, Zelensky said he was ready to meet with Putin, as well as Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss a potential memorandum – as opposed to what he characterised as a Russian 'ultimatum' for a ceasefire issued on Monday (Tuesday AEST).
'Russians are behaving like thimble-riggers. They do not want deescalation or an end to the war. They pretend to be constructive, but their games are only aimed at delaying US sanctions,' Zelensky said in a statement on X.
He proposed a meeting starting as soon as Monday, at any workable location, and a concurrent ceasefire, and said he would be grateful if Trump supported the idea.
'When we meet it will become clear if there is will for deescalation. If no, the ceasefire will end on the same day,' Zelensky said.
Putin, however, showed no willingness to meet with Zelensky, expressing anger Wednesday about what he said were Ukraine's recent 'terrorist acts' on Russian rail lines in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on the countries' border.
'How can any such meetings be conducted in such circumstances? What shall we talk about?' Putin asked in a video call with top Russian officials.
Trump gave no explicit indication in the account of his phone call with Putin as to whether they had discussed such a meeting, or a similar initiative.
Their conversation came as Congress grows increasingly impatient to impose additional sanctions on Russia, including 500 per cent tariffs on US trading partners who buy Russian oil. Legislation to that effect has the support of at least 82 members of the 100-seat US Senate.
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A Ukrainian delegation was due to meet senators on Wednesday, local time, to discuss the sanctions bill.
'It's a pivotal moment in Ukraine and crunch time for the Senate on this bill,' Democratic senator and bill co-sponsor Richard Blumenthal told Politico.
Eddie Fishman, a senior research scholar at Columbia University's School of International Affairs, argued in a new essay for Foreign Affairs that Trump's Russia policy was 'at a dead end' and it was time to pull the trigger on sanctions.
Rather than extreme tariffs on third countries, Fishman proposed sanctions enabling them to gradually reduce imports of Russian oil and pay the money into escrow accounts that could only be used for humanitarian goods. This was based on a sanctions regime Barack Obama used against Iran.