The patience of Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin seems to be running out, at least that’s what it appears publicly, and this Tuesday he warned the Russian president that he is “playing with fire,” two days after stating that he had become “completely crazy” for continuing the bombings on Ukraine and giving up concessions for a diplomatic solution.
Just over a week ago, Trump spoke on the phone with Putin and then announced the start of peace negotiations for Ukraine, but since then progress has focused only on the exchange of prisoners and Russia has ignored constant calls for a ceasefire.
What did Trump say now about Putin?
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that, if it weren’t for me, many bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean very bad things. He is playing with fire,” said Trump on his Truth Social account, without going into further details about these veiled threats.
On Sunday, Trump wrote about Putin that “He’s killing a lot of people...I don’t know what his problem is. What happened to him?”.
On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Putin of “simply playing with diplomacy and diplomats.”
The governments of Russia and Ukraine held their first direct talks in more than three years on May 16 in Turkey. The only tangible commitment that emerged from the meeting was the exchange of a thousand prisoners by each party, which has been taking place in recent days.
This Tuesday, the spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, stated that her country was working on the ceasefire document. “Russia continues to develop the draft memorandum on the future peace treaty, defining various positions such as the principles of the solution, the deadlines for the possible conclusion of the peace agreement, and a possible ceasefire for a specified period in case the corresponding agreements are reached,” Zakharova said.