US president’s comments come after Ukrainian counterpart said he believed ‘strong steps’ were under consideration
Donald Trump has suggested he could target Russia financially as Ukraine’s president urged him to take strong steps if Moscow failed to support a 30-day ceasefire agreed at a meeting between Ukrainian and US delegations in Saudi Arabia.
The president’s threat came as the French defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, told a press conference in Paris that a ceasefire announcement could come as soon as Thursday and that Europe would have to be prepared to help enforce it.
Washington, Kyiv and Europe are waiting for Moscow’s response to the ceasefire proposal, and US envoys are expected to hold talks with Vladimir Putin by the end of the week. The Kremlin has not publicly said whether or not it supports an immediate ceasefire.
If Putin refuses, “I understand that we could count on strong steps. I don’t know the details yet, but we are talking about sanctions and about strengthening Ukraine,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.
Trump said on Wednesday that he had received “positive messages” regarding the ceasefire, but “a positive message means nothing”. The White House later said that Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, would be in Moscow later this week.
“It’s up to Russia now,” Trump said from the White House. “Our people are going to Russia right now as we speak. And hopefully we can get a ceasefire from Russia.”
Trump did not directly promise to target Russia with sanctions if Vladimir Putin does not sign the deal, but said he could “do things financially that would be very bad for Russia”.
He added, however: “I don’t want to do that, because I want to get peace.”
Asked whether he believed Putin would hold to a ceasefire, given he had broken them in the past, Trump said: “We haven’t spoken to him yet with substance, because we just found out. We’re going to know very soon. I’ve gotten some positive messages, but a positive message means nothing. This is a very serious situation. This is a situation that could lead to World War Three.”
Defence ministers from Europe’s five leading military powers, the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland and France met in Paris on Wednesday to discuss the formation of a “reassurance force” that would guarantee peace in Ukraine if a settlement was agreed.
Lecornu said they were “hoping to see a ceasefire tomorrow” and that 15 countries were willing to contribute to a force of up to 30,000 personnel that would secure Ukraine’s airports, ports and infrastructure on a permanent basis.
However, the ministers emphasised they still wanted the US to provide a backstop guarantee to support peacekeepers, and hinted that the minerals deal due to be signed by the US and Ukraine would be insufficient.
John Healey, the UK defence secretary, stressed that the UK wanted “the US to play a part in the reassurance force”. When asked whether a minerals deal could amount to a security guarantee for Ukraine, he said it was “a step towards a process where we get a ceasefire”, implying it was not necessarily sufficient.
Late on Wednesday, Russian state television showed Putin making his first visit to the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise incursion last year.
Dressed in military camouflage, the Russian president expressed hope his army was on the brink of “fully liberating” the territory, and told senior commanders that Ukrainian soldiers captured in Kursk should be treated as terrorists.
“I am counting on the fact that all the combat tasks facing our units will be fulfilled, and the territory of the Kursk region will soon be completely liberated from the enemy,” he said. On Wednesday, Russian forces entered the central square of Sudzha, the largest Russian settlement controlled by Ukraine.
Minutes after footage of Putin’s remarks aired on Russian state TV, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, suggested his troops were pulling back to minimise losses.
Zelenskyy also appeared to hint at an organised withdrawal in his comments on Wednesday. “The military command is doing what it should do – saving the maximum number of lives of our soldiers,” he said.
Last month, in an interview with the Guardian, Zelenskyy said Ukraine hoped to swap the territory it held in Kursk region for areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy described Tuesday’s marathon negotiations in Jeddah, between a US delegation led by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and a Ukrainian delegation consisting of his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and the country’s foreign and defence ministers, as “very positive”.
The talks were an attempt to repair relations after a disastrous White House meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump two weeks ago.
In Moscow, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia was awaiting detailed information from Washington about what was discussed in Jeddah and that Putin must first be briefed by the US before deciding whether the proposal would be acceptable to Russia.
He added that the Kremlin could organise a call between Putin and Trump at short notice if needed.
Rubio confirmed the US would have contact with Russia on Wednesday about the ceasefire agreement reached with Ukraine, though stopped short of spelling out what consequences Russia might face if it did not agree.
“We all eagerly await the Russian response and urge them strongly to consider ending all hostilities,” Rubio said during a stop in Ireland. “If they say no, then obviously we’ll have to examine everything and sort of figure out where we stand in the world and what their true intentions are.”
Zelenskyy said the Ukrainians had come to the table in Saudi Arabia with a suggestion for a 30-day ceasefire in the air and at sea, during which details of a more lasting settlement could be discussed. However, the Americans proposed a full ceasefire, which was agreed after calls made by the two delegations to their respective presidents.
He said that while monitoring sea and air ceasefires would be easy, he hoped Ukraine’s western partners would provide a plan for how to monitor a ceasefire along the frontline, “given who we are dealing with and given our experience of the past years”.
Some Russian officials indicated scepticism about the prospect of a ceasefire, saying Moscow was unwilling to stop the fighting as its forces this week made rapid gains in reclaiming territory in Kursk region.
Putin has repeatedly rejected the possibility of a temporary ceasefire, saying he was focused on addressing the “root causes” of the conflict. Earlier this year, he told Russia’s security council there “should not be a short truce, not some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the aim of subsequently continuing the conflict, but a long-term peace”.
Instead, the Russian leader has set out a list of maximalist demands to end his invasion, including Ukraine forgoing Nato membership, undergoing partial demilitarisation and ceding full control of the four Ukrainian regions Putin claimed in 2022.
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