“I felt that we had a deal about four times, and here we are still talking … it just keeps going on and on and on,” Trump said.
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“I speak to him [Putin] a lot about getting this thing done. And I always hang up and say, ‘That was a nice phone call’. And then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city.
“After that happens three or four times you say the talk doesn’t mean anything. My conversations with him are always very pleasant … and then the missiles go off that night.
“I go home, I tell the First Lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation’. She said, ‘Oh really? Another city was just hit’.”
The remarks are a distinct change from earlier in Trump’s second term, when he returned to power promising to end the war quickly by doing a deal with Putin. Back then, he was confident that Putin wanted peace, and said he trusted the Russian leader to do the right thing.
But as months passed, Trump’s frustrations grew. In late April, he said he thought Putin might be “tapping me along”. On a number of occasions, he said he would decide in two weeks whether Putin could be trusted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting on social issues at the Kremlin in Moscow on Monday.Credit: Sputnik via AP
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” Trump said overnight. “It’s been proven over the years. He’s fooled a lot of people, he fooled [US presidents] Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden – he didn’t fool me.
“But … at a certain point, ultimately, talk doesn’t talk. It’s got to be action, it’s got to be results.”
At the meeting with Rutte, Trump confirmed US-made Patriot missile defence systems would be shipped to Ukraine, as sought by the nation’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, which will be paid for by European allies.
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There was no immediate response from the Kremlin. Earlier, Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for international investment who took part in talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington.
“Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure,” Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. “This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means.”
with AP
