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Trump offers Putin choice of carrot or stick to end ‘ridiculous’ war in Ukraine

A US-Ukrainian friendship flag on display at a market stall in Kyiv, Ukraine, 20 January 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE/SERGEY DOLZHENKO

A US-Ukrainian friendship flag on display at a market stall in Kyiv, Ukraine, 20 January 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE/SERGEY DOLZHENKO

US President Donald Trump has given the most detailed account to date of his plan to end the war in Ukraine, offering Vladimir Putin a choice between doing things “the easy way or the hard way” in a post he made on his Truth Social microblogging site on Wednesday.

Threatening to impose new sanctions, taxes and tariffs on Russia unless Putin ended the country’s “ridiculous” war in Ukraine, Trump stressed that he “loved the Russian people” and was ready to do Putin a “very big favour” by striking a deal to end the war.

“Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Trump wrote.

Trump also urged Americans not to “forget that Russia helped” the United States to win World War II, putting the Soviet death toll at over 60 million despite the fact that most historians — as well as Russia’s own Defence Ministry — place the Soviet Union’s losses in that war at around 27 million.

“Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better. It’s time to ‘MAKE A DEAL.’ NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!”, Trump concluded.

It’s unclear how much Trump’s threats will resonate in the Kremlin, however, given that the United States has already imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Russia, beginning in 2014 following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, and continuing through both Trump’s first term and the Biden administration.

Russian exports to the US have plummeted by over 85% since the war in Ukraine started and are currently at their lowest level since the fall of the Soviet Union, with once-lucrative Russian oil exports to the US having been phased out in 2023.

On Tuesday, Trump confirmed that his administration had made contact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and reiterated that he intended to speak with Putin, with whom he claimed to have a “very good relationship”, “very soon”.

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