Donald Trump has sent a new warning to Vladimir Putin, as the Kremlin continued to stall attempts to make progress on a peace deal for Ukraine. His comments came following a Russian missile attack on a US factory in Ukraine, which injured at least 15 workers.
Russian state TV was quick to taunt Trump over the attack, describing the bombing of the Flex electronics factory as the “destruction of Western investments”. The US President has spearheaded a new diplomatic push to try and seal a peace deal in Ukraine. Trump and his administration believed progress had been made to stop the brutal war following the Alaska summit just over a week ago.
However, the Kremlin has since issued a raft of new hardline demands, seemingly in a bid to derail the talks.
Russia‘s Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov ruled out an imminent direct meeting between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. He also insisted the Kremlin must have a veto on any post-war security guarantees for Kyiv.
The Kremlin’s procrastination over peace talks prompted an increasingly frustrated Trump to issue Putin with a sharp warning.
He told reporters at the White House on Friday: “I’m going to make a decision as to what we do and it’s going to be a very important decision.”
Trump said the decision would be whether or not to slap Russia with “massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both”. He also hinted the US could simply walk away and leave both sides to continue fighting.
On Thursday, Russian missiles destroyed the US-owned Flex Electronics factory in Mukachevo, which is close to the Hungarian and Slovakian borders in western Ukraine.
The plant produces consumer products such as fitness trackers, health monitors and coffee machines. At the time of the attack some 600 workers were at the plant.
The strike provoked a furious response from the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine.
Andy Hunder posted a video of himself at the destroyed factory complex and said: “This was not only an attack on Ukraine. It was an attack on American business.
“Russia is not only devastating Ukraine — it is destroying and humiliating American business. We call on President Trump to stand with American business and to confront Vladimir Putin’s campaign of destruction.”
