An intended summit in Budapest between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin was called off on Wednesday
Donald Trump has said he will not meet with Vladimir Putin until he thinks a deal to secure peace between Russia and Ukraine is in place.
“You have to know that we’re going to make a deal, I’m not going to be wasting my time,” the US president told reporters in Doha on Saturday.
It comes after Mr Trump said earlier this week he did not want to have a “wasted meeting” with Putin, after officials concluded that the gap between the two sides was too big to begin negotiations on peace in Ukraine.
An intended summit in Budapest, Hungary, between the pair was to take place in the coming weeks, but was put on hold on Wednesday. “It just it didn’t feel right to me,” said Mr Trump. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I cancelled it.”
As well as calling off the meeting, the Trump administration also unleashed new sanctions against Russia’s biggest oil companies, as part of a push for Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.
But Putin responded by saying he would never bow to US pressure, despite admitting the sanctions could cause economic pain.
Nato member’s main airport shuts again
Nato member Lithuania closed its capital airport late last night and shut both crossings on the border with Belarus after helium weather balloons drifted into the Baltic country’s territory for a second consecutive day.
Traffic at Vilnius Airport was suspended until 2am, while the Belarus border will remain shut until the same time, Lithuanian officials said.
European aviation has repeatedly been thrown into chaos in recent weeks by drone sightings and other air incursions, including at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and the Baltic region.
Nato member’s main airport shuts again after Belarusian balloons disrupt airspace
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Sam Kiley meets Russian volunteers in Ukraine’s army near the southern front line who explain why they turned on Vladimir Putin – and how they’re happy to kill their countrymen.
Why Russians are fighting against Russia: ‘Putin has ruined my country’
Japan scrambles jets as Russian nuclear-capable bombers fly near its coast
Japan scrambled fighter jets to monitor nuclear-capable Russian warplanes that flew over international waters along the edge of Japanese airspace off its coast.
Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Japan’s air force launched the jets in response to Russian bombers approaching the Sea of Japan.
The defence ministry said the two Tu-95 bombers, accompanied by two Su-35 fighters, had initially flown toward Japan’s Sado Island before turning northward. The ministry also released a map showing the flight path of the Russian aircraft off Japan’s west coast over the Sea of Japan.
US mulling further sanctions on Russia – report
The Donald Trump administration has reportedly prepared additional sanctions to target Russia’s economy to bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
US officials have also told European counterparts that they support the EU using frozen Russian assets to buy US weapons for Kyiv, two US officials told Reuters.
Washington has held nascent internal conversations about leveraging Russian assets held in the US to support Ukraine’s war effort, according to the report.
While it is not clear whether Washington will actually carry out any of those moves in the immediate term, it shows there is a well-developed toolkit within the administration to up the ante further after Mr Trump imposed sanctions on Russia on Wednesday for the first time since returning to office in January.
One senior US official told Reuters that he would like to see European allies make the next big Russia move, which could be additional sanctions or tariffs.
A separate source said Mr Trump was likely to hit pause for a few weeks and gauge Russia’s reaction to Wednesday’s sanctions announcement.
Those sanctions took aim at oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft. The moves spiked oil prices by more than $2 and sent major Chinese and Indian buyers of Russian crude looking for alternatives.
