Russia is not clear what President Donald Trump means when he says that an agreement on Ukraine must be found within 50 days, the Foreign Minister, Serghei Lavrov said. “We want to understand what is behind this statement on the 50 days,” he said. “First there were 24 hours, then 100 days,” he recalled, “we really want to understand what the President of the United States is guided.” For Lavrov, Trump “is clearly subjected to pressure from NATO and European Union”. But the Foreign Minister has flaunted security in the face of the prospect of new punitive measures. “I have no doubts that we will be able to manage any new western sanctions well,” he said, “and I don’t see that our partners abandon the commitments made in bilateral and multilateral formats”.
The Kremlin said that the ultimatum launched yesterday by Donald Trump, as well as the new deliveries of weapons promised to Ukraine, will push Kiev to “prolong the war”. “It seems that this decision taken in Washington, in NATO countries and directly in Brussels it will be perceived by Kiev not as a signal in favor of peace, but as a signal in favor of the continuation of the war,” underlined the spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitrij Peskov. «The declarations of President Trump are very serious. Obviously we need time to analyze what Washington said, and if or when President Putin deems it necessary, he will commentel, “he said during his daily briefing.
From his return to the White House, Trump tried to push Moscow and Kiev to end the conflict, in particular by contacting Vladimir Putin, from which he is now said “disappointed”. “I thought we would reach an agreement two months ago, but it seems that it is not happening,” he said at the end of the meeting with the NATO secretary General Mark Rutte. Without an agreement within 50 days, the United States will impose “secondary duties”, or against the Moscow allies, warned the US president.
Last year, the main commercial partners of Russia were China, which represented about 34% of total trade, together, to a lesser extent, in India, Türkiye and Belarus, according to Russian customs. Today Beijing speaks of “a coercion that leads to nothing”.
The US President also announced on Monday that military equipment “for a value of several billion dollars”, in particular the aerial defense systems, would have been sent to Ukraine. These equipment will be purchased by the European members of NATO. Mark Rutte specified that among the buyers there will be Germany, the United Kingdom, Finland, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Denmark and Holland have announced to Brussels that they are ready to participate in the Trump plan. However, it remains to be seen how long it will take before European countries send these weapons into Ukraine, a daily goal of the Russian raids.
Peskov said that Russia remains ready to negotiate, but is waiting for “proposals from the Ukrainian side” for a third round of interviews, after the two recent unsuccessful sessions in Istanbul.