Donald Trump announced off the cuff that his deadline for Vladimir Putin to reach a ceasefire deal with Ukraine or face consequences is ten days from Tuesday.
The president had said on Monday that he would enforce tariffs and sanctions on Russia in “10 or 12 days,” rapidly accelerating the 50-day deadline he’d set earlier this month.
While speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, Trump was asked for clarity on the “10 or 12 days” timeline. “Has that started yet?” a reporter asked. “When can we see the official statement that that is the new deadline?”
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“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give it to you now,” Trump replied. “Do you want a big scoop?”
“Everybody else close your ears, OK?” he added. “Ten days from today.”
On Monday, while speaking to reporters with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland, Trump said he was “disappointed” with Putin and that he was bringing forward the original Sept. 3 deadline for the Russian president to comply.
“We thought we had [a deal] 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,” Trump said. “You have bodies lying all over the street. And I say ‘that’s not the way to do it.’
The Kremlin hasn’t commented on the new timeline. On Monday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, commented on what he called Trump’s “ultimatum game.”
“He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran,” he wrote. “2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country. Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!
During his campaign, Trump claimed he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has been ongoing since Russia invaded its neighbor in Feb. 2022, in one day if elected.
He’s since struggled to make headway with Moscow despite repeated conversations with Putin, and has appeared to grow increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress.
Russia has launched a series of devastating attacks on Ukraine in recent months, including two of its largest drone attacks of the war in early July.
“We’re very, very unhappy with them, and we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days,” Trump said on July 14. Days earlier, he complained in a Cabinet meeting that “we get a lot of bulls--t thrown at us by Putin.”
“He’s very nice all of the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” he said.
Trump has threatened repeatedly to punish Russia over its escalating violence against Ukraine, but has yet to act on those warnings.
