Brendan Scanland
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump has canceled his planned face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as Moscow ramps up attacks on Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure.
The announcement came Tuesday as Russian forces surged along several parts of the front line in Ukraine, ignoring U.S. calls for a combat freeze.
“We canceled the meeting with President Putin. It just didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it,” Trump said. “We’ll do it in the future,” he added, but did not suggest when that could be.
The planned meeting followed last week’s cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, with Trump expressing hopes of brokering a similar outcome to the war between Russia and Ukraine. But optimism has faded after Russia launched more than 3,000 drones, 1,300 guided bombs and nearly 50 missiles in just one week, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Footage from Kharkiv shows the aftermath of a Russian drone strike on a kindergarten Wednesday, which left more than two dozen injured. Russia has also increased strikes on power facilities, plunging millions of Ukrainians into darkness as temperatures drop.
“This is all extremely sad — it’s got to end,” said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “What NATO is doing is it’s trying collectively to sustain Ukraine in this fight.”
Following Russia’s escalation, Trump met Wednesday with Rutte at the White House — just days after his sit-down with Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy has been pushing the United States to send long-range Tomahawk missiles, but such a move appears unlikely.
“The problem with the Tomahawk that a lot of people don’t know — it’ll take a minimum of six months, usually a year, to learn how to use them,” Trump said. “They’re highly complex. The only way a Tomahawk is going to be shot is if we shot it — and we’re not going to do that.”
Even without Tomahawk missiles, experts say progress is being made.
“You’re really starting to see positive developments,” said Davis Richardson, founder and CEO of America-Ukraine Strategic Partners. “Both U.S. allies and European countries are aligning with what they have to do to have success with all of this.”
Richardson noted that Ukraine has recently unveiled its own long-range missile alternative, the Flamingo, capable of striking targets deep inside Russia. He said the development, as well as Ukraine’s counteroffensive, signals that Ukraine is “starting to turn the tide.”
In response to the recent Russian strikes, the Trump administration imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies and nearly three dozen subsidiaries. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the sanctions “one of the largest” yet. Oil prices rose sharply Thursday as traders braced for potential supply disruptions.
