Russia rejects Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine can take back territory from a "paper tiger." Get the latest update on Moscow’s st...
Russia rejects Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine can take back territory from a "paper tiger." Get the latest update on Moscow’s stance and the conflict. Russia doesn't care about Donald Trump's change of tone. The US president said Russia was a weak "paper tiger" in serious economic trouble, and he said Ukraine could take back all of its land from Russia.
When Trump talked about Russia, he said they had been "fighting aimlessly for three and a half years." This was different from how he treated Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Alaska last month.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, said that Trump's words were because he had just met Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, outside of the UN general assembly in New York.
In a radio talk with RBC, Peskov said, "Of course, President Trump heard Zelenskyy's report." At this point, it looks like this version is what led to the verdict we heard.
In the past, Trump has repeated what the previous world leader told him in talks, but he changes his mind later.
Peskov said that the Russian army was slowly but surely making progress in Ukraine. Putin "has said many times that we are moving forward very carefully to avoid losses..." "These actions are very planned," he said.
Peskov didn't agree with calling Russia a "paper tiger." He said that his country's main animal was a bear. "Russia keeps its strength." "Russia keeps the economy as a whole stable," he said.
Later, the Kremlin said the war had a purpose, and it seemed to be trying to make Trump happy by saying that improving relations between Russia and the US was going "much more slowly than desired."
Trump said on Tuesday that Ukraine had good chances in the war and that Russia was in a lot of financial danger. It was one of the most powerful things he had said in recent months to show his support for Kyiv.
According to what Trump wrote on his Truth Social page, he fully understood the military and economic situation between Russia and Ukraine. He also saw the economic problems that Russia was facing because of it. Trump believes that Ukraine, with the help of the EU, can fight and win all of Ukraine back to its original state.
He said that the Ukrainians could start a counteroffensive to "take back all the land occupied by Russia,” and who knows, maybe even go further. This would happen if the Russian people knew what was "really going on with this war."
Zelenskyy praised Trump's action and called it a "big shift" from the US president.
The Russian economy has been hit hard by Moscow's attack of Ukraine. On Wednesday, the finance ministry proposed raising the value-added tax rate by two percentage points to 22%.
Trump also scolded European countries on Tuesday for buying "embarrassing" amounts of oil and gas from Russia. He told them they needed to "immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia" or "we are all wasting a lot of time."
Since 2022, the EU has bought much less oil and gas from Russia. In 2024, it bought only 19% of its gas and 27% of its oil from Russia, compared to 45% and 27% before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday that she and Trump had "agreed on the need to cut Russia's revenues from fossil fuels, and fast" during a meeting at the UN. "By 2027, Europe will have turned the page on Russian fossil fuels for good," von der Leyen wrote about the meeting.
Von der Leyen said last week that he wants to stop buying liquified natural gas from Russia by 2027, which is a year earlier than planned. The commission also said it was going to apply sanctions to an extra 118 ships in Russia's "shadow fleet." These are tanks that aren't well taken care of and are used to get Russian oil to buyers outside of the West without paying western prices.
But the EU hasn't taken away Hungary and Slovakia's protection from buying Russian oil that was given to them in 2022. Despite pressure from Trump, who is friends with Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, both central European countries have turned down the plan to phase out Russian fossil fuels.
Sanctions can only be agreed upon by all members of the EU, but trade restrictions can be passed by a majority. Senior EU diplomats are due to talk about the plans in the next few days, but it's still not clear when and how the latest proposals will be agreed upon.