There was a stony silence from Moscow a day after the U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and slapped punishing sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies.
Just days after a “very productive” phone call between the two leaders — in which they agreed to meet in Hungary and after which the U.S. president appeared to take Russia’s side regarding a possible peace deal with Ukraine — Trump changed tack on Wednesday, voicing his frustration with Moscow.
“We canceled the meeting with President Putin. It just, it didn’t feel right to meet. It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it, but we’ll do it in the future,” Trump said Wednesday.
“Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” Trump added, flanked by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, with whom he had discussed peace proposals for Ukraine.
Asked why he had chosen to impose a package of sanctions on oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft at that moment, Trump said, “I just felt it was time, we’ve waited a long time.”
