DONALD Trump has warned Vladimir Putin he’s “disappointed but not done” with the Russian tyrant, saying he “trusts almost no-one.”
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said he still believes a peace deal with Russia is possible, but made clear his patience is wearing thin.
The comments were made only hours after he gave Putin a 50-day deadline to halt his attack on Ukraine or encounter extensive tariffs and US-provided long-range missiles capable of hitting Russian territory.
“I’m disappointed in him, but I’m not done with him. But I’m disappointed in him,” Trump told the BBC on Monday in a 20-minute phone interview.
“We’re working it, Gary,” he said when pressed on how he plans to stop the bloodshed.
“We’ll have a great conversation. I’ll say: ‘That’s good, I think we’re close to getting it done,’ and then he’ll knock down a building in Kyiv.”
Trump, who once branded Nato “obsolete,” told the BBC his view has changed.
“No. I think NATO is now becoming the opposite of that,” he said, because members were “paying their own bills.”
He also reiterated his backing for the alliance’s mutual defense principle, asserting that it aids smaller countries in defending themselves against greater dangers.
Trump’s exasperation with Putin escalated on Monday when he cautioned the possibility of “very severe” 100 percent secondary tariffs on Russia should it fail to agree to a ceasefire within 10 days.
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days,” he said during a meeting with Nato chief Mark Rutte at the White House.
It comes as Ukraine launched a large-scale drone blitz across southwestern Russia, damaging homes, commercial sites, and injuring civilians in the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions.
In Voronezh, 12 drones were intercepted, but falling debris injured several people and damaged apartments and suburban houses, regional Governor Alexander Gusev said.
“Unfortunately, there were injuries,” he confirmed on Telegram.
In Lipetsk, a drone crashed in an industrial area of Yelets, injuring one person, according to regional governor Igor Artamonov.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed 55 drones were shot down overnight across five regions and the Black Sea, including three in Lipetsk.
The extent of the damage is still being assessed, and Ukraine has not commented on the strikes.
Both Kyiv and Moscow deny targeting civilians, but the war — now in its fourth year — has claimed thousands of civilian lives, most of them Ukrainian.
In one of his biggest threats yet, Trump has ordered the deployment of an arsenal of “top-of-the-line” weapons to Nato for immediate delivery to Ukraine.
The package includes long-range missiles capable of hitting Moscow, in what military experts say could shift the balance in the war.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a decorated British Army commander, told The Sun: “These weapons can strike Moscow – over 400 miles from the border.
“This will have both psychological as well as physical effects. People in Moscow will realise that they potentially could be targeted.”
Trump’s renewed push to arm Ukraine follows a phone call with Putin in which the Russian leader reportedly vowed to seize full control of Ukraine’s occupied territories within 60 days.
“He wants to take all of it,” Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron, according to a source cited by Axios.
The grim assessment sparked a dramatic shift in policy: Trump intervened to restart US weapons shipments that had been paused and began crafting an expansive new military aid package.
At the White House on Monday, Trump doubled down on his new stance.
“We make the best equipment, the best missiles, the best everything,” he said.
Trump made clear that Nato allies would send their own Patriot systems to Ukraine while the US would replace those for its partners.
Rutte praised the move as a “game changer”, saying it would give Ukraine access to “really massive numbers of military equipment” to defend against Russian air attacks.
“This builds on the tremendous success of the Nato summit,” Rutte said.
“The Europeans are stepping up.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has since thanked Trump for the “willingness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings”.
Zelensky, who met with US special envoy for Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg on Monday, said he had a “very good conversation” with Trump later in the evening.
