Trump tells Putin to end ‘ridiculous war’ in Ukraine or face new sanctions

Donald Trump has warned that he will impose high tariffs and further sanctions on Russia if Vladimir Putin fails to end the war in Ukraine.

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, he said that by pushing to end the war he was doing Russia and its president a “very big favor”.

Trump had previously said he would negotiate a resolution to Russia’s full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022, in a single day.

Russia has not yet responded to the remarks, but senior officials have said in recent days that there is a small window of opportunity for Moscow to deal with the new US administration.

Putin has repeatedly said he is prepared to negotiate an end to the war, which only began in 2014, but that Ukraine will have to accept the reality of Russian territorial gains, which currently make up about 20% of the country’s land . He also refuses to allow Ukraine to join NATO.

Kiev does not want to give up its territory, although President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that he may have to cede some currently occupied land temporarily.

On Tuesday, Trump told a news conference that he would talk to Putin “very soon” and it “sounds likely” that he will apply more sanctions if the Russian leader does not come to the table.

But in his Truth Social post on Wednesday, he went further: “I want to do Russia, whose economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR,” he wrote.

“Strike now and STOP this ridiculous war! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on whatever is sold by Russia to the United States and various other participating countries.”

Continuing, he said, “Let’s get this war, which would never have started if I were president, over! We can do it the easy way or the hard way—and the easy way is always better. It’s time to to “LET A DEAL”.”

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy earlier told the Reuters news agency that the Kremlin needed to know what Trump wants in an agreement to end the war before the country moves forward.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that at least 200,000 peacekeepers would be needed under any deal.

And he told Bloomberg that any peacekeeping force for his country would have to include American troops to pose a realistic deterrent to Russia.

“It can’t be without the US… Even if some European friends think it can be, no it won’t be,” he said, adding that no one else would risk such a move without the US.

While Ukraine’s leaders may appreciate this tougher-talking Trump – they have always said that Putin only understands strength – the initial reaction in Kiev to the US president’s comments suggests that it is actions, not words, that people are waiting for.

Trump has not specified where more economic sanctions might be aimed, or when. Russian imports to the US have plummeted since 2022, and all sorts of heavy restrictions are already in place.

Currently, the main Russian exports to the US are phosphate-based fertilizers and platinum.

On social media, there was a generally scathing response from Ukrainians. Many believed that more sanctions were a weak response to Russian aggression. But the biggest question for most is what Putin is actually open to discussing with Ukraine in the event of peace talks.

In Moscow, meanwhile, some people see signs that the Kremlin may be preparing Russians to accept less than the “victory” once envisioned, which included tanks rolling all the way west to the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa.

TV editor Margarita Simonyan, who is staunchly pro-Putin, has begun talking about “realistic” conditions for ending the war, which she suggests could include stopping fighting along the current front line.

That would mean the four Ukrainian regions that Putin illegally declared Russian territory more than two years ago, like Zaporizhzhia, are still partially controlled by Kiev.

Russian hardliners, the so-called “Z” bloggers, are outraged by such “defeatism”.

In his social media post, Trump also couched his threat of tariffs and tighter sanctions in words of “love” for the Russian people and emphasized his respect for Soviet losses in World War II — a near-sacred topic for Putin — though Trump massively overstated the numbers and seemed to think the USSR was Russia alone. In reality, millions of Ukrainians and other Soviet citizens also lost their lives.

That said, the man who previously said he could “understand” Russia’s concerns about Ukraine’s entry into Nato — which for Kyiv is tantamount to saying Putin was provoked — appears to be changing his tone.

Trump’s stance matters. But after 11 years of war with Russia and a history of poor peace deals, Ukrainians are not inclined to be too hopeful.