President Donald Trump threatened to impose “high levels” of tariffs and sanctions on Russia if there is no deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump called out Russian President Vladimir Putin by name in the social media post, arguing that he always had a good relationship with the leader, but that it was time to settle “this ridiculous War!”
“We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better,” Trump wrote on his social media website. ” ‘It’s time to MAKE A DEAL.’ NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!”
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could settle the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day if he was elected president. He would go on to claim that Putin would never have invaded had Trump been president.
It’s unclear how much impact economic penalties would have on the Russian government. The Biden administration already imposed various sanctions on Russia’s economic sectors.
Trump said in his post that he was not “looking to hurt Russia” and that he’s offering Putin “a very big FAVOR,” considering the number of lives lost and the impacts on Russia’s economy.
“Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE,” he also wrote.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would like to have peace, “but it takes two to tango.”
“We’ll see what happens anytime they want,” Trump said. “I mean, I’d like to see that end. Millions of people are being killed, and they’re being killed. It’s a vicious situation.”
On Inauguration Day Monday, Putin congratulated Trump and said he was open to dialogue and a deal for “long-term peace.”
HOW THE RUSSO-UKRAINE WAR BEGAN
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which had started in 2014.
The invasion, the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties.
As of 2024, Russian troops occupy about 20% of Ukraine. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.
In late 2021, Russia massed troops near Ukraine’s borders and issued demands to the West including a ban on Ukraine ever joining the NATO military alliance.
After repeatedly denying having plans to attack Ukraine, on 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation”, saying that it was to support the Russian-backed breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, whose paramilitary forces had been fighting Ukraine in the Donbas conflict since 2014.
Putin espoused irredentist and imperialist views challenging Ukraine’s legitimacy as a state, baselessly claimed that the Ukrainian government were neo-Nazis committing genocide against the Russian minority in the Donbas, and said that Russia’s goal was to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine.
Russian air strikes and a ground invasion were launched on a northern front from Belarus towards the capital Kyiv, a southern front from Crimea, and an eastern front from the Donbas and towards Kharkiv. Ukraine enacted martial law, ordered a general mobilisation and severed diplomatic relations with Russia.
