WASHINGTON — Two hundred and ten days after the day he said he would end Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, President Donald Trump again failed to do so Monday, only this time in the company of Ukraine’s leader and seven of his top European allies.
“I think that President Putin wants to find an answer, too, and we’ll see. And in a certain period of time, not very far from now, a week or two weeks, we’re going to know whether or not we’re going to solve this,” Trump said, slipping into his familiar time frame of other goals he never accomplished, such as the release of his plans for health care or infrastructure — and one he has previously provided multiple times for how long it would take to know if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was serious about ending his war.
What happens next is unclear. Trump again floated the idea of Zelenskyy, Putin and himself meeting, but there is no indication that Putin is interested in stopping either his invasion force or his nightly drone and missile attacks against civilian targets.
Putin’s condition for doing so is for Ukraine to give him the land in the eastern part of the country that he has been unable to take by force for three and a half years.
