U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin 10 to 12 days to stop the killing in Ukraine, shortening a 50-day deadline he had given the Russian leader two weeks ago.
Russia fired an overnight barrage of more than 300 drones, four cruise missiles and three ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian air force said, as the Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities continued despite Trump’s pressure for it to end. U.S.-led peace efforts have also failed to gain momentum.
Trump had said on July 14 that he would implement “severe tariffs” on Russia unless a peace deal is reached by early September. On Monday, Trump said he would now give Putin 10 to 12 days, meaning he wants peace efforts to make progress by Aug. 7-9.
The plan includes possible sanctions and secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s trading partners. The formal announcement would come later on Monday or on Tuesday, Trump said.
“No reason in waiting,” Trump said of the shorter timeline. “We just don’t see any progress being made.”
Putin must ‘make a deal’: Trump
Putin has “got to make a deal. Too many people are dying,” Trump said during a visit to Scotland.
There was no immediate response from the Kremlin.
In a post on social media platform X, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of Putin, said Trump was playing “a game of ultimatums” that could lead to a war involving the United States.
“Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with [Trump’s] own country,” Medvedev wrote.
Trump repeated his criticism of Putin for talking about ending the war but continuing to bombard Ukrainian civilians.
“And I say, that’s not the way to do it,” the U.S. president said, adding, “I’m disappointed in President Putin.”
Asked at a news conference about a potential meeting with the Russian leader, Trump said: “I’m not so interested in talking anymore.”
Still, he voiced some reluctance about imposing penalties on the Kremlin, saying that he loves the Russian people. “I don’t want to do that to Russia,” he said, but he noted how many Russians, along with Ukrainians, are dying in the war.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham signalled that U.S. lawmakers are willing to back the president in his efforts to end the conflict.
“Congress stands ready, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, to help President Trump in his efforts to get the parties to the peace table,” Graham said in a post on X, in which the senator also said Trump’s frustration with Putin is understandable.
Ukraine has urged Western countries to take a tougher line with Putin. Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, thanked Trump for shortening the deadline.
“Putin understands only strength — and that has been conveyed clearly and loudly,” Yermak said on the Telegram messaging service, adding that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared the sentiment.
Zelenskyy separately praised Trump’s statement as timely in trying to move forward to a peace settlement: “Clear stance and expressed determination by @POTUS — right on time, when a lot can change through strength for real peace,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.
Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko said the U.S. president has begun to see that Putin was “just playing games” with him and that could have consequences — if Trump is willing to put Russia under pressure with sanctions and further support for Ukraine.
“I don’t think that Putin will have any other option than to … stop the war,” if that happens, Goncharenko told Germany’s Deutsche Welle.
Not all are convinced that Trump’s words will move Putin to change course, however.
“My impression is that the Russians really don’t take [Trump’s] threats particularly seriously,” John Lough, a Russia expert with Chatham House, a London-based think-tank, said when speaking with Times Radio on Monday.
“Of course they are concerned, but to believe that something really decisive is going to come down the road, and they are somehow going to be forced immediately to change their policy, that’s I think beyond really the realms of possibility right now.”
Before Trump returned to the Oval Office in January, he’d claimed he could end the conflict in Ukraine in a 24-hour period. More than six months into his presidency, the war hasn’t stopped.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022. The two countries have been locked in a state of all-out war ever since.
Drone attack leaves 8 injured in Kyiv
A Russian drone blew out the windows of a 25-storey residential building in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, wrote on Telegram. Eight people were injured, including a young girl, he said.
The attack also started a fire in Kropyvnytskyi, in central Ukraine, local officials said, but no injuries were reported.
The main target of the Russian attack was Starokostiantyniv, in the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine, the air force said. Regional authorities reported no damage or casualties.
Western Ukraine is on the other side of the country from the front line, and the Ukrainian military is believed to have significant airfields as well as arsenals and depots there.
The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces carried out an overnight strike with long-range, air-launched weapons, hitting a Ukrainian airbase along with an ammunition depot containing stockpiles of missiles and components for drone production.