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US President Donald Trump has warned Vladimir Putin he is “playing with fire” after Russia launched some of its biggest drone and missile attacks on Ukraine since its full-scale invasion began in early 2022.
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realise is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “He’s playing with fire!”
Trump’s latest posts reveal the growing frustration in his administration with Putin’s apparent intransigence over the war. The Russian leader has offered no concessions and shown no interest in the ceasefire demanded by Ukraine and its western allies.
“President Putin is getting a sense of President Trump’s anger at the nature of what’s transpiring,” Tammy Bruce, state department spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday.
Bruce hinted Trump might be close to taking action against Russia. “As we’ve seen today with Putin . . . there is a point that [Trump] looks at things differently, and how that manifests, just like with everything else in this administration, it will happen quickly.”
Trump said on Sunday he would “absolutely” consider new sanctions on Moscow. He was speaking just before Russia launched a massive drone barrage against Ukraine. The authorities in Kyiv said more than 350 explosive drones and at least nine cruise missiles were launched against the country.
“He’s killing a lot of people,” Trump said of Putin on Sunday. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. What the hell happened to him?”
Trump and Putin spoke on the phone on May 19, with the US president saying afterwards that Russia and Ukraine would “immediately start negotiations towards a Ceasefire, and, more importantly, an END to the War!”
But nothing has happened since, to Washington’s frustration. Trump asked Putin to provide a term sheet outlining Russia’s requirements for a ceasefire, but so far no document has been forthcoming.
Meanwhile, a sanctions bill co-authored by Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is among Trump’s most prominent legislative allies, continues to gather support in the upper chamber. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Graham said he had co-ordinated his legislative efforts with the White House.
Graham said the measure would put Russia on a “trade island, slapping 500 per cent tariffs on any country that buys Moscow’s energy products”. “If China or India stopped buying cheap oil, Mr. Putin’s war machine would grind to a halt,” he continued, adding that the bill had 82 co-sponsors.
Chuck Grassley, Republican senator from Iowa, said in a post on X he believed Trump was sincere when he thought his friendship with Putin would end the war. “Now that being the case IT’S TIME FOR SANCTIONS STRONG ENUF SO PUTIN KNOWS ‘game over’,” he said.
Asked last week in the Senate whether he would back the Graham sanctions bill, secretary of state Marco Rubio said if it became clear “that the Russians are not interested in a peace deal and they want to keep fighting a war, it may very well come to that point”.
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