"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
US President Donald Trump has said he's "disappointed but not done" with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who is showing no signs of ending the war in Ukraine. Trump gave a 50-day deadline to Moscow to end its conflict with Ukraine or face 100 per cent sanctions. But privately, he reportedly also encouraged Ukraine to step up strikes deep into Russian territory-- as far as Moscow or St Petersburg.
Voicing his fresh frustration with Moscow, Trump also laid out an arrangement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to supply Kyiv with new military aid sponsored by the alliance's members.
But Trump's departure from his previous stance of ending US involvement in the Russian conflict is reportedly not sudden. Per a report by Financial Express, the US leader's frustration with Putin had been brewing for a while, as in a July 4 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he had proposed providing long-range weapons to Kyiv to hit targets deep in Russia.
"Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow?... Can you hit St Petersburg too?" Trump reportedly asked Zelensky on the call.
Zelenskyy replied, "Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons."
While it remains unclear whether Washington will deliver such weapons, Trump on Sunday said the US will send Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine, saying they are necessary to defend the country because Russian President Vladimir Putin "talks nice but then he bombs everybody in the evening."
Trump's call to Zelensky reportedly came after he spoke with Putin and was left convinced that Moscow had no plan to halt its war machine. The American President's move underscores his deepening frustration with Putin's refusal to engage in ceasefire talks proposed by him to end the war that he once vowed to end in a day.
Trump has signalled that his changing stance on Russia is intended to "make them [Russians] feel the pain" and force the Kremlin to the negotiating table, according to the Financial Times report.
The Republican is also forcing Moscow and Kyiv to open peace talks to end the conflict, now in its fourth year, but Russia has rejected calls for a ceasefire and launched a record number of drones and missiles at Ukraine in recent months.
The Kremlin warned on Tuesday that Trump's pledge of more weapons for Kyiv and threat of sanctions targeting Russian trading partners could embolden Ukraine and further delay already stalled peace efforts.
"It seems that such a decision made in Washington and in NATO countries and directly in Brussels will be perceived by Kyiv not as a signal for peace but for the continuation of the war," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"President Trump's statement is very serious. We certainly need time to analyse what was said in Washington," he told reporters in Moscow's first reaction to the comments.
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