President Donald Trump said Friday he will give Russian President Vladimir Putin “a couple of weeks,” further extending his deadline for potential consequences against Moscow after urging the Russian leader to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart in hopes of ending the war.
Asked by CNN’s Alayna Treene if there’s a possibility he does nothing if Putin doesn’t come to the table, Trump said, “We’ll see. I’ll see whose fault it is.”
“If there are reasons why, I will 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,” Trump said.
“But I’ll know in two weeks what I’m going to do,” Trump added, reprising a timeline he’s repeatedly issued to determine Putin’s willingness to end the war in Ukraine.
His latest comments come as the momentum around peace talks has stalled, with no sign that the bilateral meeting the White House has pushed is happening. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier on Friday that there were no plans for a meeting between the two leaders.
