President Donald Trump is grappling with how deeply to involve himself in stalled negotiations over Russia’s war in Ukraine, torn between pressing harder for a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or stepping back and letting events unfold, CNN reported.
Two weeks after his summit with Putin in Alaska, Trump has grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress toward ending the conflict, according to administration officials.
Despite his high-profile push, including a White House meeting with seven European leaders and Zelenskyy just three days after his face-to-face with Putin, the momentum has largely evaporated.
“It’s gotta be up to them. It takes two to tango,” Trump said Monday when asked whether Putin had agreed to meet with Zelenskyy.
Meanwhile, Russian attacks have intensified. This week, a strike killed at least 25 people, including four children, in what Zelenskyy called one of the deadliest assaults since the war began.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “was not happy about this news, but he was also not surprised,” adding that he was closely monitoring developments.
European leaders expressed outrage after the attack damaged buildings tied to the European Union and the British Council, prompting both the EU and the United Kingdom to summon Russian diplomats. Trump, however, remained unusually quiet, even as his allies pointed to his past warnings of “severe consequences” for Moscow.
The president has repeatedly set deadlines for determining whether Russia is genuinely committed to peace talks. Last week, he again invoked a two-week timeline, hinting that his options range from imposing “massive sanctions or massive tariffs” to walking away completely.
“I’m going to make a decision as to what we do,” Trump said. “It’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs, or both, or do we do nothing and say, ‘It’s your fight.'”
“World leaders have affirmed that President Trump made more progress towards peace in two weeks than Joe Biden did in three-and-a-half years,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement to CNN.
Pressed on whether he might do nothing, Trump responded:
“I’ll see whose fault it is. If there are reasons why, I’ll understand that. I know exactly what I’m doing. We’re going to see whether or not they have a meeting, that will be interesting to see, and if they don’t, why didn’t they have a meeting, because I told them to have a meeting. But I’ll know in two weeks what I’m going to do.”
As Trump deliberates, his administration continues to maintain support for Ukraine. On Friday, foreign envoy Steve Witkoff met with senior Ukrainian officials in New York ahead of an emergency U.N. Security Council session.
The meeting followed U.S. approval of a $825 million sale of 3,350 extended-range attack missiles to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy has indicated his willingness to meet, but the Kremlin remains resistant, leaving the prospect of direct talks — and Trump’s own role in shaping them — uncertain.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
