On Saturday, American President Donald Trump became more irked at Russian President Vladimir Putin as a result of recent Russian bombing raids in Ukraine, threatening Washington might retaliate by imposing "banking" and "secondary" sanctions that will put pressure on Moscow.
Trump, who previously stressed his one-on-one relation with Putin as a likely conclusion to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, queried whether the Russian president was merely "tapping me along," a phrase interpreted as to incite or coax on without benign intent.
This withering denunciation came just days after Trump publicly rebuked Putin to stop the bombardments in a Truth Social post. "Vladimir, Stop," Trump wrote, a comment widely seen as a public rebuke of the Russian leader.
There was no need for Putin to be firing missiles into civilian populations, cities and towns, the last couple of days," Trump wrote on Truth Social, citing the recent shelling of Kyiv. "It makes me wonder whether he doesn't want to end the war, he's stringing me along, and needs to be dealt with in another way, using 'Banking' or 'Secondary Sanctions'? Too many people are being killed!!!"
Trump said that after he had a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday at the Vatican prior to the funeral of Pope Francis.
Though the subject matter of their meeting was not made public, a White House official described the session as "very productive."
"Good meeting. One-on-one, we were able to talk a lot. Hope for an outcome from all that was discussed," Zelensky went on to tweet later in the day. He reported that they spoke about on the "defending the lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and permanent peace that would prevent again the return to war."
Zelensky continued to say: "It was a very symbolic meeting that can become historic if we get common results. Thank you, President Donald Trump!"
At the same time, Steve Witkoff, serving as Special Envoy for President Trump, had already met with President Putin in Moscow yesterday.
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