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US president claims progress made in his two-hour call with Putin, but repeats his threats to abandon efforts at brokering peace
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Vladimir Putin is “trying to buy time” to continue his war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has warned, after Donald Trump insisted progress had been made after his two-hour call with the Russian president.
Despite Mr Trump saying negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow would begin “immediately”, the Kremlin quickly poured cold water on the US president’s optimistic statements, saying “there are no deadlines and there can’t be any”.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, repeated his threat to abandon efforts to broker peace, insisting that he has a “red line in my head” on when he will walk away and saying: “This is not my war.”
Engaging in a flurry of diplomacy with calls to Kyiv’s allies on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president said he accepted that “there is no doubt that the war must end at the negotiating table”, but warned that Russia must face tough sanctions if it “continues to put forward unrealistic conditions and undermine progress”.
Meanwhile, heavy fighting continued along the front line, with Ukraine reporting 177 combat clashes and claiming to have inflicted more than 1,000 casualties upon Russia over the past 24 hours.
Vladimir Putin is playing Donald Trump “like a violin”, a former British foreign secretary and leader of the Conservative Party has warned.
Asked whether he believes Mr Trump could give up on his push for peace, Lord William Hague said: “I think he is very close to that, which is the exact opposite of what a negotiator should do, because in successful peace negotiations you need a powerful peace negotiator to come along and say, ‘I’m not going until you two have agreed’, and then really apply themselves to it and say ‘if this takes months, I’m staying here’.
“This is the opposite. This is: ‘if you don’t agree, I’m off.’ That, of course, is exactly what Putin wants. So Putin is playing him totally … flattering him, sending him a portrait, having long phone calls with him, saying no doubt how wise he is, and so on – and then doing nothing until he goes away.
“That is the Putin strategy. At the moment it’s working, and it’s astonishing that a president of the United States can fall for that so easily but he is being played like a violin,” Lord Hague – who is now the chancellor of Oxford University – told Times Radio.
“It is alarming to see because it just underlines that there is a serious risk that Ukraine will be almost entirely dependent on support from Europe, including Britain, rather than from the United States.
Following Vladimir Putin’s phone call with Donald Trump, the Russian foreign ministry has claimed that Ukraine must now decide whether or not it will cooperate in discussing a memorandum ahead of a future peace accord that Moscow has proposed.
Despite Mr Trump saying negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow would begin “immediately”, the Kremlin quickly poured cold water on the US president’s optimistic statements, saying “there are no deadlines and there can’t be any”.
And the Kremlin warned earlier that the process for Moscow and Kyiv to develop a unified text of a peace and ceasefire memorandum would be complex. Ukraine has repeatedly called for a ceasefire before proper peace talks can begin.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff has warned that, “unfortunately, following the Trump–Putin phone call, the status quo has not changed”.
Writing on social media, Mikhailo Podolyak warned that Russia “still seeks war, destruction, and killing – believing them to be the only means of preserving its current state,” accusing Moscow of being “unwilling and categorically refusing” to accept a ceasefire.
The chief presidential aide added: “There is also this obsessive search for the so-called ‘root causes of the war’, even though the only real cause is the simple fact of Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”
“Ukraine continues to offer the only realistic path out of the war – through an immediate and unconditional ceasefire – comprehensive, long-term, and binding,” said Mr Podolyak, adding: “The United States remains a global mediator – still assuming that Russia is capable of negotiating and willing to end the war for the sake of business or strategic interests.”
The European Union has adopted new sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, zeroing in on Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, human rights violations and hybrid threats, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said.
“The EU has approved its 17th sanctions package against Russia, targeting nearly 200 shadow fleet ships,” Kaja Kallas said on social media.
“More sanctions on Russia are in the works. The longer Russia wages war, the tougher our response.”
The UK also announced fresh sanctions targeting Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers which seek to circumvent a G7 price cap on Russian crude oil imposed in response to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The G7 cap was designed to allow Russian oil to be sold to third countries using Western insurance services provided the price was no more than $60 a barrel. The move has started to bite and the EU will push for a lower price cap this week during a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Canada.
Donald Trump will “do a runner” from brokering peace in Ukraine and “no doubt there’ll be a golf resort somewhere near St Petersburg” soon, a former British defence secretary has said.
Former Tory MP Ben Wallace told Times Radio: “I’m not very hopeful, I’m afraid. Throughout this Donald Trump has consistently let Putin off the hook”, despite repeatedly threatening tougher sanctions.
“The reality is Donald Trump has no interest. It’s one of the deals that he will move on from – most of his career in business has been about ‘make a deal and do a runner before it actually unravels’. I think that’s what we’re going to see,” he added.
Laying the blame for the millions of people killed, injured and displaced in the war solely at Mr Putin’s feet, he said: “Donald Trump seems to think spending a lots of time on the telephone to him and being constantly humiliated by him – when he just refuses to do anything that Trump requests – is someway the way to proceed and let’s move on to a trade deal.”
Mr Wallace, who was defence secretary for the first 18 months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, added: “No doubt there’ll be a golf resort somewhere near St Petersburg, I suspect, soon.”
The UK has insisted that its new raft of 100 sanctions will “protect Ukrainian lives, and our collective security by disrupting Russia’s military machine”.
According to the Foreign Office, the new measures sanction the supply chains of deadly Russian weapons systems, including the Iskander missiles used in the Palm Sunday attack on Sumy which killed 34 people.
They also target 46 financial institutions accused of aiding Russian attempts to evade sanctions, as well as the St Petersburg Currency Exchange, and the Russian Deposit Insurance Agency which insures Russian banks. “These new sanctions will further isolate the Russian economy and disrupt Russia’s revenue streams,” the Foreign Office said.
The UK is also sanctioning 18 more ships in the so-called “shadow fleet” carrying Russian oil, along with the fleet’s enablers, the Foreign Office said, in a move which follows 110 shadow fleet-related sanctions previously announced by Sir Keir Starmer ahead of his visit to Kyiv earlier this month.
Britain is also levelling sanctions against 14 further members of Russia’s Social Design Agency across all levels of the organisation, which the Foreign Office accused of carrying out Kremlin-funded information operations “designed to undermine sovereignty, democracy, and the rule of law in Ukraine and across the world”.
The UK government has announced a new raft of 100 sanctions on targets across Russian military, energy, financial sectors and those conducting Vladimir Putin’s information war against Ukraine.
Announcing the new measures after Russia launched its largest ever drone strike on Ukraine, Britain’s foreign secretary David Lammy said: “Putin’s latest strikes once again show his true colours as a warmonger.
“We urge him to agree a full, unconditional ceasefire right away so there can be talks on a just and lasting peace.
“We have been clear that delaying peace efforts will only redouble our resolve to help Ukraine to defend itself and use our sanctions to restrict Putin’s war machine.”
Vladimir Putin is “trying to buy time” to continue his war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has warned.
Writing on social media after a phone call with his Finnish counterpart, in which they discussed Donald Trump’s phone call on Monday with Mr Putin, the Ukrainian president said that “diplomacy aimed at peace must be well-coordinated and focused on tangible outcomes”.
Mr Zelensky said: “It is obvious that Russia is trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation. We are working with our partners to ensure that pressure forces Russians to change their behavior. Sanctions matter, and I am grateful to everyone making them more biting for those responsible for this war.
“There is no doubt that the war must end at the negotiating table. The proposals on the table must be clear and realistic. Ukraine is ready for any negotiation format that delivers results. And if Russia continues to put forward unrealistic conditions and undermine progress, there must be tough consequences.
“More conversations with our partners are scheduled for today.”
The Independent’s foreign affairs editor Sam Kiley writes:
Vladimir Putin isn’t saying “no” to the demands from around the world that he accepts an unconditional 30-day ceasefire as proposed by Ukraine and endorsed by the Trump administration. He’s not saying “yes” either – and he’s yanking Trump’s chain.
First, said Putin, the two countries would have to define a possible ceasefire, including its timeframe. The offer is defined as “stop shooting” and the timeframe is “now”, but the Russian leader shrugged.
The US president has begun to understand that he’s appearing feeble. When it comes to Putin he has always been weak. He’s tried to butch up in social media posts but when he’s got the man himself on the phone, all efforts to take control fail him.
The EU and its non-US allies are planning to tighten oil sanctions on Russia later this week, they have already increased their own defence spending and are giving Ukraine more military aid than America. They know the calls from the Kremlin are worth nothing, no matter how much Trump enjoys them.
Read the full analysis here:
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