Trump “Not Happy” With Putin Over Ukraine Strike, And More – President Donald Trump publicly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday following the largest aerial assault of the war in Ukraine, accusing the Russian leader of “killing a lot of people” and warning that his actions have become “crazy.”
The president made the comments on both social media and to reporters outside Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey.
During the brief airport stop, the president said that he is “not happy” with what the Russian president is doing.
Trump Is Mad At Putin About the Ukraine War
“He’s killing a lot of people, and I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,” the president said.
The president also referenced his long relationship with the Russian president, explaining how they have always “gotten along” and that he is surprised to see the new strikes given recent positive diplomatic exchanges.
“He’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all,” Trump said. “He’s shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities…and something happened to this guy.”
What Is Happening?
The comments came after strikes occurred on Sunday afternoon and continued overnight. Russia launched 298 drones and 69 missiles at cities across Ukraine, according to Ukrainian military sources. The onslaught, which Kyiv officials say killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens, has been described as the most extensive aerial attack of the war in terms of volume – if not the deadliest.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the strike by calling on international allies to go further.
“The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” Zelenskyy said. “Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”
Is Trump “Only Just Realizing”?
On Monday, May 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said during a tour of Southeast Asia that he believed President Trump has “realized” that Putin has been lying to him.
“I believe that President Trump has realized that when President Putin told him he was ready for peace, he was lying,” Macron said, adding that what is happening in Ukraine is “unacceptable and extremely serious.”
“You cannot claim to be ready for negotiations and carry out attacks at the same time. Such double rhetoric demonstrated the insincerity of any statements about dialogue,” Macron added.
But is Trump really only just realizing that Putin is being dishonest? Arguably, no.
When President Putin says he’s ready for peace, only naive world leaders believe that means he’s prepared to stop the war.
In reality, whenever the Russian president has made this comment, it has been abundantly obvious through context that he is ready to end the fighting in exchange for Ukraine and the West meeting a number of maximalist demands.
President Trump, aware that this was the case and conscious of the fact that Ukraine “doesn’t have the cards” to make demands as big as those coming from Russia, has built his entire peace deal around this dynamic.
What President Trump may now be realizing, however, is that Putin believes, or perhaps believed, that he can continue escalating even during the negotiation process. This may have just changed.
Ukraine Peace Chances: Could This Be The End?
In response to President Trump’s aggressive comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made efforts to calm tensions and reopen communication with President Trump. Peskov attempted to defend the latest actions by the Russian military while crediting the U.S. president for ensuring new rounds of negotiations between the two warring countries.
“We are really grateful to the Americans and to President Trump personally for their assistance in organizing and launching this negotiation process,” Peskov said. “Of course, at the same time, this is a very crucial moment, which is associated, of course, with the emotional overload of everyone absolutely and with emotional reactions.”
The comments could be interpreted as an effort to calm President Trump ahead of what is expected to be a new round of negotiations that involve the two countries’ leaders and top officials.
Could this, then, be the beginning of the end? Does the Russian president want to risk angering Trump, the only Western leader willing to demand concessions from Ukraine, at a time when Ukraine is indicating a willingness to let go of dreams of restoring its borders to those of 1991?
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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