President Trump slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin for dispatching more than 300 drones and missiles against Ukraine in some of the most intense attacks since the war first started, just one week after assuring that peace talks would start “immediately.”
The deadly attacks started as a planned prisoner swap between the warring countries was underway. Under the agreement, each side is turning over around 1,000 imprisoned combatants and civilians over three days — even as Russia continues its unrelenting barrage. The final swap was set for late Sunday.
Trump told reporters Sunday that he is “not happy” with the increasing violence and that he has no idea “what the hell happened to Putin.”
“I’ve known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people and I don’t like it at all. We’re in the middle of talking and he’s sending rockets into Kyiv and other cities. I don’t like it at all,” Trump said.
“I’m very surprised. We’ll see what we’re going to do….I don’t like what Putin is doing…he’s killing people. Something happened to this guy and I don’t like it.”
He later doubled down on social media, writing that Putin “has gone absolutely CRAZY!”
“Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Russia has spent the last two days straight launching numerous attacks across Ukraine, first on 30 Ukrainian cities and villages on Saturday night and later focusing on the capital Kyiv on Sunday. Russia claimed it seized three more villages in the attacks, which Kyiv denied.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the United States to take action, noting the gall that its inaction encourages.
“The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin. Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia,” Zelensky said in a statement on Sunday.
In early May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration would seek to impose a 500% tariff on Russian oil and gas if there was not serious progress made towards a peace agreement. But he noted that the tariffs would depend on Trump’s will.
Trump, however, didn’t take kindly to Zelensky’s critiques.
“Everything out of [Zelensky’s] mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop. This is a War that would never have started if I were President. This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not ‘Trump’s,’ I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires, that have been started through Gross Incompetence and Hatred,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump previously promised he would end the war “on day one” of his second presidential term.
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