U.S. President Donald Trump has once again expressed his dissatisfaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He did so after new Russian drone attacks on Ukraine, in which twelve people died. Trump writes on social media that Putin has gone crazy.
“I’m not happy with what Putin is doing,” Trump told reporters on Sunday evening, just before boarding his plane Air Force One. “He’s killing a lot of people. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with Putin.”
“I’ve always had a good relationship with Putin,” Trump wrote shortly thereafter on Truth Social. “But something happened to him. He’s gone crazy. Rockets and drones have been fired at Ukrainian cities for no reason.”
Trump fears that Russia wants to take all of Ukraine. The U.S. President immediately gave Putin a warning: “If he tries that, it will be the downfall of Russia.”
Russia attacked several Ukrainian regions on the night from Saturday to Sunday. The attacks resulted in twelve fatalities. The Russian army used the largest number of rockets and drones since the Russian invasion in 2022.
Third night with drone attacks in a row
Russia again bombarded Ukraine with combat drones on the night from Sunday to Monday. As far as is known, there are no casualties, but the extent of the damage is still unclear. It is the third night in a row that Russia has carried out drone attacks.
Incidentally, Trump also criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his message on Truth Social. He claims that Zelensky’s statements only cause problems and do not do his country any good.
The U.S. President had made such claims more often. Trump does not make it clear in his message which statements by his Ukrainian counterpart and which problems he means.
Negotiations have little effect yet
A quick end to the war between Ukraine and Russia was one of the goals that Trump had set for himself after his inauguration. But the attempts at rapprochement by the warring parties are taking more time than Trump had hoped. Also last week during the negotiations in Istanbul, there was no ceasefire.
Zelensky has repeatedly made it clear that peace is possible if there is an end to the Russian air strikes and occupation. Putin regularly calls “removing the root causes of the war” a condition.
But the Russian president remains vague about those root causes. It may come down to the goals that Moscow set at the beginning of the war: a complete surrender of Ukraine and a pro-Russian government in Kyiv.