Trump Threatens Russia with Sanctions, Tariffs in Push for Peace Deal

Donald Trump has threatened Vladimir Putin with new sanctions if Russia does not stop “pounding” Ukraine.

Mr Trump said he was “strongly considering” large-scale sanctions and tariffs on Russia “until a ceasefire and final settlement agreement on peace is reached”.

His warning marked the first time he has challenged Mr Putin directly since becoming president, following a week of high tension between the White House and Ukraine.

Mr Trump stressed that Russia and Ukraine must “get to the [negotiating] table right now, before it is too late”.

Meanwhile, in the first positive signal from the Kremlin in response to Mr Trump’s calls for a ceasefire, sources told Bloomberg that Putin was willing to discuss a temporary truce in Ukraine, if there is progress towards a peace settlement.

The moves come with another crucial week of frantic diplomacy ahead. Kyiv is desperately trying to prove to the Trump administration it is ready for peace after Washington stopped weapons deliveries and cut off intelligence-sharing and satellite data, partially “blinding” Ukraine.

Speaking later from the Oval Office, Mr Trump admitted he found it “easier” to deal with Russia than Ukraine in his efforts to end the three-year war, and insisted that he trusts Putin.

“I believe him,” Mr Trump said. “I’m finding it more difficult frankly to deal with Ukraine and they don’t have the cards…It may be easier dealing with Russia.”

The US president once again positioned himself as the only person capable of ending the conflict. “The Ukrainians don’t know how to end the war, I know how to end the war,” he told reporters.

Mr Trump’s sanction threats came in response to a major Russian missile and drone attack on Ukrainian energy facilities, hobbling the country’s ability to deliver heat and light to its citizens and to power weapons factories vital to its defences.

US sanctions on Russia have squeezed its economy, cutting off big banks from the global dollar system, while Putin allies have been sanctioned and their assets frozen as trade between the two countries collapsed.

However, serious holes remain. The Biden administration had been stuck playing a tedious game of whack-a-mole to try to catch sanction dodgers helping Putin’s regime fund the war.

There is still a “heck of a lot” of room to put pressure on the Russian economy, Kevin Hassett, the director of the US National Economic Council, said, adding Mr Trump was using carrots and sticks to “get everybody to the table”.

On Thursday, at a major summit of EU leaders in Brussels, Volodymyr Zelensky backed plans for a partial truce to stop air, sea and critical infrastructure attacks, and test whether Putin is prepared to end his war on Ukraine.

Key meetings in Saudi Arabia

Senior Ukrainian and US officials will discuss these plans, as well as a large-scale prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow, at a meeting in Saudi Arabia next Thursday.

Mr Zelensky will not take part, but will travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in advance of what he hopes will be “meaningful” talks.

Steve Witkoff, the US Middle East envoy, and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, are expected to be in Jeddah at the talks alongside Andriy Yermak, President Zelensky’s chief of staff.

Meanwhile, a large cohort of European defence chiefs will be gathering in Paris on Tuesday at the behest of Emmanuel Macron, who is pushing for a one-month ceasefire in Ukraine as the first stage to end the war.

France will then host defence ministers from Britain, Germany, Italy and Poland to shore up support for Ukraine in the midst of rapidly receding US backing.

The flurry of European diplomacy comes as Ukraine faces intense counter-attacks in Russia’s Kursk region that have put 10,000 of its troops at risk of encirclement.

Kyiv’s foothold inside Russia is one of its key cards to play at negotiations, but military analysts fear this may soon be lost after Russia broke through the front line and advanced on a key supply line from two directions.

Ukraine seized part of the region last summer in a surprise offensive, but has steadily lost chunks of it. On Friday, Russian forces advanced in Sudzha, some 11km inside of Russia.

Maps from Deep State, the Ukrainian military blog, reveal that roughly three-quarters of the Ukrainian force inside Russia is nearly fully encircled and almost split in two.

It is believed that a significant number of North Korean troops were used in the offensive to cut the soldiers off, with the help of drone warfare to disrupt Ukrainian supply chains and logistics.

A junior sergeant in Kursk told The Telegraph that Ukraine was considering withdrawing from Kursk to avoid further losses. “We want to avoid losses. The fear of encirclement is real,” they said.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian analysts believe Russia could be planning an imminent large-scale aerial attack on western Ukraine after it carried out major reconnaissance missions in the Volyn, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.

Open-source analysts at the Ukrainian Telegram channel Your Lviv also reported Russia delivering new missiles to a major airbase in western Russia, indicating Moscow was preparing for fresh bombing strikes.