By Andrew MacAskill and Andrea Shalal
TURNBERRY, Scotland (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he was setting a new 10 or 12-day deadline for Russia over its war in Ukraine, underscoring his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for prolonging fighting between the two sides.
Speaking in Scotland, where he is holding meetings with European leaders and playing golf, Trump said he was disappointed in Putin and shortening a 50-day deadline he had set on the issue earlier this month.
“I’m going to make a new deadline of about … 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting… We just don’t see any progress being made.”
The U.S. president has repeatedly voiced exasperation with Putin for continuing attacks on Ukraine despite U.S. efforts to end the war.
Before returning to the White House in January, Trump, who views himself as a peacemaker, had promised to end the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict within 24 hours.
“I’m disappointed in President Putin,” Trump said on Monday. “I’m going to reduce that 50 days that I gave him to a lesser number because I think I already know the answer what’s going to happen.”
There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.
Trump has threatened new sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports unless an agreement is reached by early September.
But the president, who has also expressed annoyance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has not always followed up on his tough talk about Putin with action, citing what he deems a good relationship that the two men have had previously.
“We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever,” Trump said. “And I say that’s not the way to do it.”
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Andrea Shalal in Scotland; additional reporting by Jeff Mason and William James; writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Chizu Nomiyama )
