() President Donald Trump’s deadline for Russia to move toward peace with Ukraine or face steep sanctions from the United States has arrived.
The White House said economic consequences for Russia and its trade partners are still expected, and that Trump won’t back down on the ceasefire time limit he set for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Consequences have already been felt by one of Russia’s top trade partners. Trump hit India with an additional 25% tariff earlier this week, punishing the country for its role as the second-largest importer of Russian oil, behind China which is facing a Tuesday deadline to agree to a tariff deal with the U.S.
Trump-Putin meeting: Ukrainians uncertain, Zelenskyy wants in
Leadership in Ukraine is watching the back-and-forth between Moscow and Washington, D.C., closely.
Trump and Putin’s teams have said they want to meet face-to-face as soon as next week, though little has been confirmed.
“As President Trump said earlier today on TRUTH Social, great progress was made during Special Envoy Witkoff’s meeting with President Putin,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made it clear he wants a seat at the table for these negotiations.
A White House official previously suggested the meeting was contingent on Putin also sitting down with Zelenskyy, but late Thursday, Trump walked that back.
Russia’s terms for ending the war include large-scale demilitarization, guarantees of giving up the pursuit of NATO membership and territorial concessions in places that Russia has never occupied.
Getting any deal across the finish line will take serious negotiations a fact leaving some people in Ukraine less-than-hopeful for Friday’s developments.
“I do not expect any positive outcomes from this Trump-Putin meeting. Why should Putin end this war?” Mykhailo Kryshtal, a resident of Kyiv, told . “He has at his fingertips a lot of people willing to die for him, or for some ephemeral ideas produced in Russia.”
To Putin, negotiations are “all some kind of games,” Kryshtal said.
‘s Anna Kutz contributed to this report.
