US President Donald Trump has admitted that Russia is delaying a full ceasefire in Ukraine, POLITICO reported.
Trump added, however, that he believes Vladimir Putin ultimately wants an end to the war, but is delaying the process.
The US and Russia have already held two rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia, but the Trump administration has still failed to keep its promise - namely, to mediate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
More than three years have passed since Putin's full-scale aggression against Ukraine. Kiev has indicated that Moscow is deliberately obstructing ceasefire talks by setting unrealistic conditions. Military and political experts say Putin is doing this deliberately because he believes time is running out and he can seize more Ukrainian territory.
Asked by Newsmax reporters about the talks with Putin, Trump said he believed the Russian president was using a tactic he himself had used in the past to buy time. "I've done it over the years," Trump said.
Following the peace talks in Riyadh, the White House said in a statement that Ukraine and Russia had committed to a pause in the fighting in the Black Sea. But the Kremlin said in its own statement that the naval truce would only take effect after the United States lifted some sanctions on Russian financial institutions, a detail missing from the White House statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that Russia had damaged infrastructure in the city of Krivoy Rog and Sumy region in an overnight drone strike, Reuters reported. “The launch of such large-scale attacks after ceasefire talks is a clear sign that Moscow will not seek real peace,” Zelensky wrote on the social media platform X.