President Donald Trump announced his decision tor reduce his 50-day deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war with Ukraine ahead of Monday's (July 28) meeting with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland.
“I’m disappointed in President Putin, very disappointed at him,” Trump said via the New York Post. “So we’re going to have to look, and I’m going to reduce that 50 days — that I gave him — to a lesser number, because I think I already know the answer what’s going to happen.”
"I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10 to 12 days from today,” he later clarified after the meeting with Starmer, claiming the initial 50-day offer was "generous" but "we just don't see any progress being made."
Trump had previously threatened Putin to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine or face secondary sanctions exactly 14 days prior. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly stated his openness to having a meeting with Putin to negotiate an end to the three-year war, however, the Kremlin has shown little enthusiasm in sending its president for direct talks, having instead sending lower staff to engage in initial discussions.
The three prior delegation meetings have resulted in prisoner swaps, but haven't successfully established a ceasefire. Trump, however, has spoken with Putin directly on the telephone and served as a mediator between him and Zelensky, claiming the Russian president told him he wanted to end the war only to then direct missile strikes on Ukraine.
“We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street,” Trump said in Scotland via the New York Post. “And I say that’s not the way to do it. So we’ll see what happens with that."