US President Donald Trump says he’s “very angry” and “pissed off” with his Russian counterpart after Vladimir Putin suggested regime change in Ukraine as part of a future peace deal
Donald Trump has said he is “pissed off” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has now threatened new tariffs after Russia put forward a proposal that Ukraine should oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and implement a transitional government as part of a peace deal.
Trump said in a television interview this morning: “If we’re in the midst of a negotiation, you could say that I was very angry, pissed off, when Putin said yesterday that – you know, when Putin started getting into Zelenskyy’s credibility, because that’s not going in the right location, you understand?”
Speaking to NBC News, Trump said he is “very angry” and “pissed off” as Russia also continues to stall in peace talks with the US regarding the war in Ukraine. “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault, which it might not be, but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump threatened.
Trump, who has used tariffs as a means of economic pressure since he began his second term, including on a number of America’s allies, continued: “That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”
His comments are a shift from what has been a gentler approach to the Kremlin since Trump took office. He took pains to stress he has a “very good relationship” with Putin, but that his Russian counterpart’s comments on Zelensky were unhelpful in the pursuit of progress in peace talks. Trump and Putin are due to speak again this week.
This week, a Russian negotiator warned that peace talks could drag into 2026, a direct contradiction to Trump’s stated aims on the war in Ukraine. “It would have been naive to expect any breakthroughs,” negotiator Grigory Karasin said to Russian state TV Channel Rossiya 24.
Russia effectively rejected a 30-day pause in the fighting proposed by the US. It also asked for sanctions against food and fertiliser to be lifted – along with the rowing back of EU economic sanctions – after the US said it would “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports” for a ceasefire in the Black Sea.
Europe is currently not keen to lift sanctions and Kremlin critics are sceptical Russia wants much progress in peace talks as it makes incremental gains on the battlefield. Trump also suggested on March 25 Russia might be “dragging their feet”.
According to Ukrainian government and military analysts, Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in the coming weeks to maximise pressure on Ukraine and strengthen the Kremlin’s negotiating position in ceasefire talks. “Putin wants to negotiate over territory from a stronger position,” Zelensky said in Paris on Thursday.
Russian attacks on civilians have continued, meanwhile, after two people died and 35 otheres injured after Russian drones hit a military hospital, shopping centre, apartment blocks and other buildings in Kharkiv late on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said. Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said a 67-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman were killed in the attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Ukraine’s General Staff denounced the “deliberate, targeted shelling” of the military hospital. Among the casualties were “servicemen who were undergoing treatment,” it said. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia fired 111 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Sunday. It said 65 of them were intercepted and another 35 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.
Zelensky said on Sunday that over the past week “most regions of Ukraine” had come under Russian attack. Writing on X, he said “1,310 Russian guided aerial bombs, over 1,000 attack drones — mostly ‘Shaheds’ — and nine missiles of various types, including ballistic ones” had been launched against Ukraine.
