Speaking on Friday at the Valaam Monastery on an island in north-western Russia, Putin said he expected negotiations with Ukraine to continue, adding that he viewed “negotiations positively”.<\/p>\n
But in a veiled reference to growing pressure from Ukraine and its Western allies to agree to a long-term ceasefire, he said: “As for any disappointments on the part of anyone, all disappointments arise from inflated expectations.<\/p>\n
“Our enemies and ill-wishers… now have one fiery passion: to stop our advance [on the front line in Ukraine] at any cost”.<\/p>\n
Ukraine and its allies have repeatedly accused Russia of stalling peace negotiations and rejecting any meaningful ceasefire, saying Moscow is trying to seize more Ukrainian territories.<\/p>\n
Three rounds of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul, Turkey, in recent months ended without any major breakthrough. The two sides, however, agreed to swap several thousands of prisoners of war.<\/p>\n
Speaking shortly after Putin’s comments, Zelensky questioned whether Russia was showing “serious readiness to end the war with dignity and establish a truly lasting peace” or whether it was “just an attempt to buy more time for war and postpone sanctions”. <\/p>\n
In recent weeks, Russia has intensified its deadly drone and missile strikes on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, at least 31 people – including five children – were killed in a Russian aerial assault on the Ukrainian capital. <\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump condemned Russia’s actions, threatening new sanctions.<\/p>\n
“Russia, I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing,” he told journalists.<\/p>\n
When in July Trump announced his original 50-day deadline for Russia to end the war, Putin didn’t react. When that was reduced to 10-12 days, Putin said nothing.<\/p>\n
But on Friday the Kremlin leader left little doubt that he would not be swayed by a White House ultimatum. <\/p>\n
Trump may claim to be “disappointed” with Putin for not making peace – but the Russian leader is unrepentant.<\/p>\n
His guest on the Valaam island, Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, was more direct in his dismissal of Trump’s deadline.<\/p>\n
“50 days, 60 days, 10 days. You don’t do politics like that,” Lukashenko said.<\/p>\n
Experience shows that, for Trump, deadlines are not set in stone. But on paper, at least, his latest deadline expires on 8 August. <\/p>\n
If by then Russia hasn’t signed up to a ceasefire in Ukraine, it will face more sanctions \u2013 so in theory will countries that buy Russian oil.<\/p>\n
But judging by what the Russian state media has been saying in recent days, many in Moscow doubt the White House will go through with its threat of tougher sanctions.<\/p>\n
What’s more, from what Putin said on Friday about Russia advancing along the entire front line in Ukraine, he clearly believes a ceasefire now is not in Moscow’s best interest.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials on Friday said Kyiv had received “positive signals” from the US about potential new sanctions.<\/p>\n
A day earlier, senior US diplomat John Kelley told the UN Security Council that Russia and Ukraine “must negotiate a ceasefire and durable peace”.<\/p>\n
“It is time to make a deal,” he said.<\/p>\n
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who is currently in Israel, would visit Russia next, the US president said earlier this week. He gave no further details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking on Friday at the Valaam Monastery on an island in north-western Russia, Putin said he expected negotiations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-310156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114955424079727613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}