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It could take up to "two weeks" to work out whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is stringing U.S. negotiators along, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House in late May. If Putin is stalling, Trump warned, "we'll respond a little bit differently." Now, the apparent deadline laid out for the Kremlin is up.
What hasn't yet materialized, though, is a ceasefire deal. Absent, too, are convincing signs an agreement could be on the horizon and clarity on how Trump intends to act. "I don't think Putin took the two weeks seriously," John Foreman, a former British defense attaché to both Moscow and Kyiv, told Newsweek.
Trump has generally veered away from overtly criticizing Putin while openly berating Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky, but has repeatedly condemned Russia's lethal airstrikes and floated that the Kremlin could be "tapping us along." U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit on July 7, 2017, in Hamburg. U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit on July 7, 2017, in Hamburg.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci Putin "will continue this game" until Trump hits the Kremlin where it hurts, Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian parliamentarian for the country's southern Odesa region, told Newsweek. The White House has been approached for comment via email. Putin does not typically respond well to ultimatums and time limits, added Emily Ferris, a senior research fellow with the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank.
Trump, who pledged to end Europe's largest land conflict since World War II, has threatened to slap new sanctions and tariffs on Russia but has, so far, appeared unenthusiastic at the prospect. Putin "knows Trump's reluctance to impose more costs on Russia," Foreman said. The Kremlin leader is likely testing whether the U.S. administration would make the move towards punishing Russia with sanctions after the two weeks are up, Ferris told Newsweek.
The Trump administration is noticeably distancing itself from the conflict, acknowledging it will cut military aid to Kyiv at a time when Russia has hammered the country with air strikes, Foreman said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers on Tuesday there will be a "reduction" in the next fiscal year's budget for aid heading for Ukraine. He did not specify what the cutbacks in the upcoming budget will be.
Ukrainian officials told Newsweek that slashing aid will cost Ukrainian lives and play into Putin's hands. Russia has launched extensive aerial attacks across Ukraine in recent weeks, firing hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles and sending hoards of explosive drones toward major cities. Ukraine has been heavily reliant on its backers, like the U.S., for air defense supplies that have long been scarce.
Ukraine has blamed a lack of pressure on Russia for the glacial pace of progress in ceasefire talks. Kyiv agreed to a U.S.-formulated 30-day ceasefire proposal in March, which Moscow dismissed. Trump himself has oscillated between driving negotiations onward and suggesting he could throw in the towel.
His administration had suggested in April it could abandon its mission to broker peace in eastern Ukraine if clinching a deal would drag on. In a fresh indication of boredom with ceasefire talks, Trump last week compared Russia and Ukraine to "two young children fighting like crazy" and resisting efforts to "pull them apart." "Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart," the president added.
A second round of direct negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials in early June yielded an accord on the exchange of prisoners of war but no steps towards an agreement on a ceasefire. Ukraine said Russia has not responded to a document outlining possible ceasefire conditions and the need for a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelensky. Russia's chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said Moscow had handed over its own document outlining road maps to stop the fighting, including a pause for up to 3 days on "certain sections of the front."
Zelensky claimed Russian officials at the talks earlier this month admitted openly to Ukraine's delegation that they knew Kyiv could not accept Moscow's conditions. Kyiv has said it is too early to schedule another meeting. There is a roughly 10 percent chance a ceasefire deal will be inked in 2025, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who served two terms as Ukraine's prime minister between 2014 and 2016, told Newsweek last month.
Update 6/11/2025 at 12:15 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
