While meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland this week, Donald Trump dropped a diplomatic bombshell. The 50-day deadline he’d given Russia to agree to a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, issued on July 14, was being slashed to only a dozen days as of Monday.
The reason? “I’m disappointed in President Putin,” Trump said.
Trump’s impatience is unlikely to change Putin’s calculus or the outcome on the battlefield one way or the other. Putin paid little attention to the first deadline and there’s no reason for that to change now.
Following the imposition of the initial 50-day threat of secondary sanctions against Russia if they refused an unconditional ceasefire, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that “any attempts to make demands (against Russia), especially ultimatums, are unacceptable to us.” Ryabkov added that Putin had said the Russians “are ready to negotiate and the diplomatic path is preferable for us.”
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