U.S. President Donald Trump renewed a threat to impose sanctions on Russia on Friday if there is no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks, showing frustration at Moscow a week after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
"I'm going to make a decision as to what we do and it's going to be, it's going to be a very important decision, and that's whether or not it's massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it's your fight," Trump said.
He said he was unhappy about Russia's strike on an American factory in Ukraine this week, which caused a fire that injured some of the facility's employees.
"I'm not happy about it, and I'm not happy about anything having to do with that war," Trump told reporters at the White House.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, meanwhile, said on Friday that Russia was doing everything it could to prevent a meeting between him and Putin, while Russia's foreign minister said the agenda for such a meeting was not ready.
Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for Putin to meet him, saying it is the only way to negotiate an end to the war.
Trump had said he had begun the arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskiy meeting after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that followed their Alaska meeting on August 15.
Zelenskiy accused Russia of stalling.
"The meeting is one of the components of how to end the war," he said on Friday at a press conference in Kyiv with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. "And since they don't want to end it, they will look for space to (avoid it)."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC there was no agenda for such a summit.
"Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskiy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all," he said.
The statement echoed Moscow's established rhetoric about a leaders' meeting being impossible unless certain conditions were met.
Asked for his response to Lavrov's comments and what the next steps are, Trump told reporters earlier on Friday: "Well, we'll see. We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskiy will be working together. It's like oil and vinegar a little bit."
Reuters
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