Two days after complaining about Vladimir Putin’s “bulls—“, Donald Trump says he’s preparing to make a major statement against Russia.
The US president has changed his tune on his Russian counterpart recently, and this morning (AEST) told NBC News that he will likely take a further step against Moscow next week.
“I’m disappointed in Russia, but we’ll see what happens over the next couple of weeks,” he said in the phone interview.
“I think I’ll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday (Tuesday AEST).”
While he didn’t elaborate on exactly what the statement will entail, other comments made in the interview suggested Trump could be preparing to unveil a new round of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
A bill with new measures against Moscow, sponsored by close Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham, is expected to pass the upper house in the coming days.
“It’s a bill that the Senate is passing that very respectfully lets the president do whatever he wants, as you know,” Trump told NBC.
“In other words, it’s at my option if I want to use it.
“They’re going to pass a very major and very biting sanctions bill, but it’s up to the president as to whether or not he wants to exercise it.”
The comments continue a marked turnaround in the US president’s approach to Putin and Russia.
Trump came to power in January promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, and spent much of the first half of the year praising the Russian dictator, labelling him “genius” and “savvy”, among other compliments.
More recently, though, he has admitted Putin has no intention of ending the Kremlin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, which has now been running for three-and-a-half years.
“I’m not happy with Putin, I can tell you that much right now, because he’s killing a lot of people,” Trump said on Wednesday (AEST).
“We get a lot of bulls–t thrown at us by Putin. You want to know the truth. He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
After pausing some previously promised weapons shipments to Ukraine last week, the White House has now resumed the munition deliveries, and Trump today revealed details of a deal with NATO, reached at last month’s summit, to continue arming Kyiv.
“So what we’re doing is the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons [to Ukraine], and NATO is paying for those weapons,” Trump said.
“We send weapons to NATO, and NATO is going to reimburse the full cost of those weapons,” he added.
