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US President Donald Trump has warned that he will impose high tariffs on Russian goods and impose additional sanctions if it fails to end the war in Ukraine.
Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, he said he was doing Russia and its president Vladimir Putin “a very big favor” by pushing for a settlement to the war.
Trump has previously said he would negotiate a resolution to the conflict, which began with a full-scale invasion by Russia in February 2022, within a day.
Russia has not yet responded to the remarks, but senior officials have said in recent days that Moscow has little room to deal with the new US administration.
Putin has repeatedly said he is ready to negotiate an end to the war, but Ukraine will have to accept the reality of Russian territorial gains, which currently make up about 20% of its territory. Meanwhile, Kyiv declares that it is not ready to give up its territory.
On Tuesday, Trump said at a press conference that he would speak with Putin “very soon” and that it “sounds likely” that he will impose additional sanctions if the Russian leader does not come to the negotiating table.
But in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, he went further: “I’m going to give Russia, whose economy is collapsing, and President Putin a very big SNAP,” he wrote.
“Settle now and STOP this ridiculous war! IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE. If we do not make a ‘deal’ soon, I will have no choice but to impose high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on anything Russia sells to the United States and various other participating countries.”
Continuing, he said, “Let’s end this war that would never have started if I were president! We can do it the easy way or the hard way – and the easy way is always better. It’s time to ‘MAKE UP’.”
Earlier, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, told Reuters that the Kremlin would need to know what Trump wanted from the ceasefire agreement before the country could move forward.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that any deal would require at least 200,000 peacekeepers.
And he told Bloomberg that any peacekeeping force for his country would have to include American troops to be a real deterrent to Russia.
“It can’t happen without the United States… Even if some European friends think it can happen, no, it won’t happen,” he said, adding that no one else would risk such a move without the United States.
While Ukraine’s leaders might appreciate Trump’s tougher rhetoric — they’ve always said Putin only understands force — Kiev’s initial reaction to the U.S. president’s comments suggests people expect action, not words.
Trump did not specify where or when additional economic penalties might be sent. Russian imports to the US have plummeted since 2022, and all kinds of tough restrictions are already in place.
Currently, the main items of Russian exports to the USA are phosphate fertilizers and platinum.
In social networks, the Ukrainians reacted in general scathingly. Many suggested that the additional sanctions were a weak response to Russian aggression. But the biggest question for most is whether Putin is actually willing to discuss any peace talks with Ukraine.
In Moscow, meanwhile, some people see signs that the Kremlin may be preparing the Russians to settle for less than the “victory” once envisioned, which included tanks rolling west toward the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa.
TV editor Margarita Simanyan, who is staunchly pro-Putin, has begun talking about “realistic” terms for ending the war, which she believes could include an end to hostilities along the current front line.
This would mean that the four Ukrainian regions that Putin illegally declared Russian territory more than two years ago, as well as Zaporozhye, are still partially controlled by Kiev.
Russian hardliners, the so-called “Z” bloggers, are furious at such a “defeat.”
In his social media post, Trump also framed his threat of tariffs and tougher sanctions with words of “love” for the Russian people and emphasized his respect for Soviet losses in World War II – an almost sacred subject for Putin – although Trump greatly overstated the numbers and appeared to The USSR is one Russia. In reality, millions of Ukrainians and other Soviet citizens also died.
However, the man who previously said he could “understand” Russia’s concerns about Ukraine joining NATO – which for Kiev is tantamount to saying Putin was provoked – appears to be changing his tune.
Trump’s position matters. But after 11 years of war with Russia and a history of failed peace agreements, Ukrainians are not inclined to hope.
