a public Oval Office meeting<\/a> that had no precedent.<\/p>\nBut suddenly it appears that Trump is not quite so enamoured with his counterpart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,\u201d Trump told reporters when asked what Putin needed to do after a deadly missile strike on Kyiv.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, at least nine people were killed and 70 injured in that strike on Kyiv. Among them were children.<\/p>\n
\u2018Vladimir, STOP!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very disappointed that missiles were flying, [fired] by Russia,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI was surprised and disappointed, very disappointed, that they did the bombing of those places after discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n
On social media, Trump even made what felt like a personal appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing,\u201d he wrote. \u201cVladimir, STOP!\u201d<\/p>\n
What has led to change in both the tone and content of Trump\u2019s language?<\/p>\n
Trump may finally be understanding that securing a lasting peace deal, or even a ceasefire that held for a few months, was not going to be as simple as he claimed.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Zelensky even claimed Ukraine would enter talks with the US to discuss sanctions and \u201cpain points in Russia that will most encourage Moscow to engage in diplomacy\u201d.<\/p>\n
As experts had warned, Putin is a skilled and ruthless adversary, who appears to care little either the lives of his own soldiers, or Ukrainians. He\u2019s been a challenge for countless US and European leaders, not just Trump. He thinks that Ukraine should be part of Russia and longs to push Nato further from its borders.<\/p>\n
Trump probably believed he did have some sort of bond with Putin, of who he recently said: \u201cI\u2019ve known him for a long time now, we had to go through the Russian hoax\u201d.<\/p>\n
People often said Trump admired Putin\u2019s near absolute power, his grip over the media and his crushing of dissent, common traits with Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orban and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.<\/p>\n
Some of his supporters also admired the kind of country Putin appeared to project \u2013 white, conservative, Christian. In 2024 Putin said he wanted Russia to be a a \u201csafe haven\u201d for citizens of people in the West who wanted to escape \u201cdestructive neoliberal ideas\u201d.<\/p>\n
And, painfully for Trump, 100 days into his term where polls show many people disapprove of his performance, he is being robbed of what he believed would be an easy \u201cwin\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a rare moment of inner reflection, Trump even acknowledged Putin appeared to have been playing him.<\/p>\n
He wrote: \u201cIt makes me think that maybe he doesn\u2019t want to stop the war, he\u2019s just tapping me along.\u201d<\/p>\n
What next for Ukraine?<\/p>\n
Trump and his White House are continuing to push hard for a deal.<\/p>\n
A week ago Trump predicted a deal would materialise in less than a week. When the deadline passed, he said \u201ctwo weeks or less\u201d was the new timeframe.<\/p>\n
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said on Sunday that \u201cWe\u2019re close, but we\u2019re not close enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
That narrative started to go sideways on Monday, when Putin suggested two brief ceasefires around Moscow\u2019s treasured Victory Day celebrations, marking the end of the Second World War.<\/p>\n
Zelensky rejected that proposal, saying a ceasefire should be 30 days or longer, as the US proposed more than a month ago. It was not an encouraging sign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of loud admiration for the Russian leader, Trump’s tune has recently changed President Donald Trump often…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[32,12,332,657,333,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-61177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-ukraine","12":"tag-vladimir-putin","13":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114423284618639244","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61177","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=61177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}