Donald Trump has said he is “very angry” at Vladimir Putin over comments about Ukraine’s leadership, threatening new tariffs on Russia if it does not agree to a peace deal.
The Russian President had called for a transitional government to be imposed in Kyiv, which would be likely to see Volodymyr Zelensky pushed out from the presidency – something Trump said was “not going in the right direction”.
The US President warned that he was “pissed off”, threatening to impose secondary tariffs on all Russian oil exports if it is unable to make a deal to “stop bloodshed in Ukraine”.
As peace talks continue between the US and Russia, The i Paper looks at what Trump’s apparent fury could mean for negotiations – and for the relationship between two of the most powerful men in the world.
Peace talks could speed up
Tony Brenton, a former UK ambassador to Russia who has negotiated with Putin directly, said the comments were “absolutely” a ploy by Trump to force the Russian President to take peace negotiations more seriously – and would probably work.
However, the diplomat warned that the US President must be careful not to push Putin too far and out of talks altogether.
Trump and Zelensky’s meeting in the Oval Office derailed peace talks after the US President shouted at Zelensky (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP)
“Trump is clearly unhappy that the process is not going very quickly and it’s hard not to blame Putin for that,” Brenton said.
“I suspect that Russians don’t want to be seen as the obstacle. It could be very damaging for Russia to be in Trump’s bad books because there are real costs, like additional sanctions. It certainly could galvanise the process.”
Putin could be humiliated
However, Brenton warned that Trump could push Putin too far: “Trump needs to be quite careful here. Putin can’t be seen in Russia to back down under US pressure. He can’t come out and say, ‘Oh, I’ve upset Mr Trump.’ Putin doesn’t want to be seen to be giving way to the US. That would be public humiliation. But he may be able to find a sophisticated way of enabling talks to begin again.”
Brenton also said that the threat of sanctions could fall on deaf ears. “The problem is that virtually everything that could be done in sanctions to Russia has already been done,” he added.
“The risk is that Putin thinks, ‘I’m winning the war; sanctions haven’t really battered the Russian economy, so why should we bow to them now?’ I don’t think that’s what Putin wants, but he may feel pushed in that direction.”
How did Russian media respond?
Russian state TV omitted the segment altogether, and official media did not substantially discuss the comments, according to Dr Marina Miron, a war studies expert at King’s College London.
However, one pro-Kremlin newspaper published a rare criticism of Trump.
Vladimir Putin (Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
Moskovsky Komsomolets accused the US President of not fulfilling his “obligations” to stop Ukraine striking Russian energy infrastructure, saying that he was “not leading” and agreements from him were worth “only a few pennies”, according to the BBC.
“If the diplomats cannot move the peace process forward, the military will do all the talking. Putin has made his move, now we wait for Trump’s,” the piece ended.
Everything stays the same
Miron said Trump’s latest intervention was unlikely to change the course of the negotiations – and was more likely to be a public relations move.
“From my perspective, this is not going to have any real impact. I don’t think we will see any official comment from Putin. I don’t think it’s going to derail peace talks,” she said.
Trump in the Oval Office (Photo: Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg)
“I don’t think the Russians are particularly worried about this because they are advancing on the battlefield. There is some speculation that Trump is only being anti-Putin until this mineral deal is signed with Ukraine. Then it’s back to normal.”
The comments were clearly designed for a public audience – and were likely to bolster Trump’s image, added Miron.
“If Trump had wanted to say it to Putin, he would have picked up the phone and told him. Or this would have been discussed behind closed doors. And maybe it is being discussed behind closed doors. But saying this in public has a completely different connotation,” she added.
“For Trump, it’s important to appear neutral. He’s been receiving a lot of criticism that he’s more pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian, so he’s trying to create some sort of balance, and his only interest is to stop the fighting. The main recipient of this message is not the Russian Government.”
