Trump says he’s going to reduce Putin’s 50 day deadline to end Ukraine war

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday he’s looking to reduce the 50-day deadline he gave Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine.

“I’m disappointed in President Putin, very disappointed at him,” the president said ahead of his meeting with UK President Keir Starmer in Scotland.

“So we’re going to have to look, and I’m going to reduce that 50 days — that I gave him — to a lesser number, because I think I already know the answer what’s going to happen.”

Trump had threatened Putin on July 14 to negotiate a cease-fire with Ukraine in 50 days — or face brutal secondary sanctions that could ravage Russia’s economy even more.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been open to meeting Putin to negotiate the end of the three-year war, but the Kremlin has been tepid about sending the Russian president to meet for direct talks, choosing to engage with lower staff first.

The three Ukraine-Russia delegation meetings held in Turkey in the past few months have not successfully established a cease-fire, but have led to prisoner swaps.

Meanwhile, Trump has phoned Putin directly and has tried to be a mediator in the war between him in Zelensky. He’s said that Putin tells him he wants to end the war, only to go on directing missiles strikes on Ukraine.

“We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street,” Trump went on in Scotland. “And I say that’s not the way to do it. So we’ll see what happens with that.