A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump says he's cutting short a 50-day deadline for the Kremlin to agree to a peace deal in Ukraine. Now he says Russia has less than two weeks to wind down its war or face massive new economic penalties. Joining us to talk about this is NPR's Russia correspondent, Charles Maynes, who joins us now on the line from Moscow. So, Charles, take us through what President Trump said yesterday.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Yeah. You know, this was a further ramping up of Trump's criticism of Russia and President Vladimir Putin in particular that we've seen in recent weeks. Once again, Trump said he was very disappointed in Putin. And once again, Trump repeated complaints that every time he negotiated with Putin, he felt like they were close to a deal, only to see Putin continue to attack Ukrainian cities. And so when it came to this 50-day deadline for a peace deal set to expire in early September, Trump essentially said, why wait when you know the answer already?
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today. There's no reason in waiting. There's no reason in waiting. It's 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don't see any progress being made.
MAYNES: So, A, this would mean a decision on whether to follow through with new economic penalties on Russia by around August 9 or so.
MARTÍNEZ: August 9. OK. I - you know, when he imposed that 50-day deadline, I mean, there was some relief. It seemed like Trump hadn't really sanctioned Russia outright. The Russian stock market even went up. So what's been the reaction in Russia...
MAYNES: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...And, for that matter, in Kyiv this time around?
MAYNES: Well, this time, the Russian stock market went down a bit, if that's any indication. Ukraine was happy with the news. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Trump for his, quote, "clear stance" aimed at saving lives, which, of course, comes after an earlier Trump decision to provide Ukraine with American-made weapons, albeit fully paid by European allies.
Meanwhile, Putin - well, he hasn't said anything. In fact, he hasn't said anything at all since Trump put forth his initial deadline. Moscow's standard line here is that Russia doesn't respond to ultimatums. And today, Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also said Moscow had taken note of Trump's latest comments, even as he suggested Moscow still wants to engage on a broad range of issues with the U.S., including over Ukraine. So it's really been left to more hawkish voices in Moscow to play to Trump's fears, which he's voiced in the past, about Ukraine drawing the U.S. into a direct confrontation.
MARTÍNEZ: Yes. You know, soon after coming into office, President Trump was criticizing Ukraine and offering Russia concessions to get a peace deal. It clearly didn't work.
MAYNES: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: The question, Charles, is why.
MAYNES: You know, it's true. You know, Trump was offering much of what Russia was after, including a ban on Ukraine's bid for NATO membership and accepting Russia's right to territory seized from Ukraine by force. But Putin has really stuck to his literal guns in negotiations. You know, he seems to have a genuine belief that Russia's now winning this war. So why compromise or allow a pause in fighting, just to see Ukraine regroup or rearm?
You know, there also seems to be a conviction here that Trump's interest in defending Ukraine only runs so deep, and that includes Trump's willingness to inflict damage on the U.S. economy because of it. After all, Trump is threatening a mix of secondary sanctions and tariffs targeting Russian energy exports and the countries that do trade in them, like China and India. And that could certainly boomerang back on American consumers. And so we're left to wonder, you know, is Trump serious when he says to Putin, enough is enough? Clearly, some here don't think so. And I guess we'll find out in 12 days.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. That's NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow. Thank you.
MAYNES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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