Trump puts pressure on Putin and gives him 10 to 12 days to accept a ceasefire.

BarcelonaUS President Donald Trump has threatened his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, saying he is giving him 10 to 12 days to reach a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, instead of 50 which was granted two weeks ago. "I've spoken a lot with President Putin, and I've gotten along very well with him," Trump said in an appearance from Scotland, in which he criticized the Russian leader for having "fired rockets at some cities, like Kiev, and killed many people in a residence." "There are bodies scattered all over the streets," he denounced.

Trump has expressed his "great disappointment in Putin" and has therefore concluded that it was a good idea to bring forward the ceasefire: "I will reduce these 50 days that I gave him, because I think I know the answer to what's going to happen," he said, adding that the new deadline would be "10 or 1. "There's no reason to keep waiting... We just don't see any progress being made," he justified.

In a meeting with NATO leader Mark Rutte on July 14, Trump had already warned that he would impose 100% "secondary tariffs" on Russia's trading partners if Moscow did not reach an agreement with Kiev within a deadline that was then set at 2, and was set at September 2. Instead, he would now have to carry out his threat on August 7 or 9. This means that any country that continued trading with Russia after the time had run out would face pay a high tax to sell their products in the United States. While Moscow is already facing widespread sanctions in the West, its trading partners are currently unaffected.

The US president has recently expressed his exasperation over Russian attacks on Ukraine and has even agreed to resume sending weapons to Kiev that he had withdrawn at the beginning of his term. But the Republican tycoon, who came to the White House promising to end the war within 24 hours, has often used his claimed good relationship with Vladimir Putin as a shield to avoid taking decisive action against Russia.

Ukraine was quick to react, thanking Russia for the ultimatum for taking peace negotiations seriously. "Thank you to the US President for standing firm and sending a clear message of peace through strength," wrote the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andri Yermak, on the X network. "Putin only respects power."

Negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations resumed on July 23 in Istanbul., with the Russian side proposing to create working groups that would operate online. A proposal that Ukraine has yet to respond to, the Kremlin said on Monday.

While the Kremlin has yet to directly respond to the threat, the Russian reaction came from former President Dmitry Medvedev, who denounced Trump for playing the "ultimatum game" and warned that this threat could end up involving the United States in a war. "Every ultimatum is a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with [Trump's] own country," he wrote on X.