U.S. President Donald Trump has admitted that Russian leaders may be deliberately “dragging their feet” and stalling efforts to secure a full peace agreement with Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Washington reached deals with Moscow and Kyiv to pause attacks at sea and against energy infrastructure, but the Kremlin said the limited truce would only come into effect when some financial sanctions are lifted.
Ukraine said this was untrue, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accusing Russia of “trying to distort agreements” and “deceive both our intermediaries and the entire world.”
Speaking to conservative American TV channel Newsmax, Trump said it was possible that Moscow is trying to delay progress in peace talks by not fully committing to the process.
“I think that Russia wants to see an end to it, but it could be they're dragging their feet,” he said.
The U.S. president, who famously wrote a book called ‘The Art of the Deal’ about business negotiations, added that he has employed such tactics in the past.
“I've done it over the years, you know—I don't want to sign a contract; I want to sort of stay in the game, but maybe I don't want to do it,” he said.
“But no, I think Russia would like to see it end, and I think Zelenskyy would like to see it end at this point.”
‘No faith in the Russians’
Although Tuesday’s separate agreements between the U.S. and the two warring factions may be seen as a significant step towards peace, the discrepancy between Ukraine and Russia’s interpretation of the deals reveals how fraught the talks are.
Kremlin officials claim that the agreement to stop the fighting on the Black Sea will not come into effect unless links between some Russian banks and the international financial system are restored. Zelenskyy said the truce would start immediately.
The two sides also reiterated their distrust for one another in public statements, with Zelenskyy saying he had “no faith in the Russians,” while the Kremlin’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that only American enforcement of the deal’s conditions could stop Ukraine from violating it.
“How Russia behaves in the coming days will reveal a lot—if not everything,” the Ukrainian president wrote on social media.
“If there are air raid alerts again, if there is renewed military activity in the Black Sea, if Russian manipulations and threats continue—then new measures will need to be taken, specifically against Moscow.”
Ukrainians ‘will fight with their bare hands’
The U.S. agreement with Russia goes further than the deal with Ukraine, with Washington committing to help seek the lifting of international sanctions on Russian agriculture and fertilizer exports, a long-term Russian demand.
Earlier this month, Ukraine agreed in principle to a blanket 30-day stop in fighting—but Moscow rejected the proposal by imposing hefty conditions, including the suspension of Western military aid to Kyiv.
Addressing a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, the head of the American spy agency, the CIA, said he thought Ukraine would fight on if any eventual peace deal did not respect its aspirations.
“I want to say that with regard to the Ukrainian resistance, the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian military have been underestimated for a period of several years now,” John Ratcliffe said, according to the Kyiv Independent website.
“From my reflections in observing, from an intelligence standpoint, I'm convinced that they will fight with their bare hands if they have to, if they don't have terms that are acceptable to an enduring peace.”
