US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he was disappointed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the ongoing war in Ukraine.
He reiterated that he initially believed that ending the war would be easy.
"I'm not thrilled with Putin. "He's killing too many people," Trump told reporters during a news conference on the U.S. military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump said he did not discuss Maduro with Putin when the two leaders spoke by phone for more than two hours on Monday, shortly before the U.S. president met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in Palm Beach.
"We never talked about Maduro," Trump said when asked if he and Putin had discussed the Venezuelan leader.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it was extremely concerned by reports that Maduro and his wife had been taken out of the country during "aggressive actions" of the United States, and called for their immediate release.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Maduro had rejected multiple opportunities to flee the country, and some reports weeks ago suggested he may have headed to Russia or closely allied countries.
On Monday, Trump initially expressed sympathy for Russian claims that Ukrainian drones had attacked one of Putin's residences. He later appeared more skeptical and shared a New York Post editorial accusing Russia of blocking peace in Ukraine.
Later, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. national security officials had determined that Ukraine had not attacked Putin or one of his residences with a drone.
Trump has repeatedly expressed disappointment with the lack of progress toward ending the war in Ukraine.
At his last meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in Florida on December 28, Trump displayed a "rude, insulting and even cruel" attitude towards his colleague and showed "complete and utter ignorance".
This was revealed by the "Washington Post", citing a senior diplomat.
According to the interlocutor, the Ukrainian side was "trying to get out" and did everything the US asked of them, and at the press conference he heard from Trump that "Russia wants Ukraine to succeed". "That probably hurt them the most", the diplomat said.
Zelensky suggested in comments on Saturday that the United States could resolve the problem with "some other dictators" in the same way it resolved the problem with Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.