U.S. President Donald Trump says he intends to shorten the 50-day deadline he gave Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach a deal that ends the three-year war in Ukraine

Trump says he’s shortening the 50-day deadline for Russia to end the war in Ukraine

President Donald Trump meets with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on Monday, July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

President Donald Trump meets with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on Monday, July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

President Donald Trump meets with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on Monday, July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

President Donald Trump meets with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club on Monday, July 28, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Christopher Furlong/Pool Photo via AP)

EDINBURGH, Scotland — U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he intends to shorten the 50-day deadline he gave Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach a deal that ends the three-year war in Ukraine.

His announcement came as Russia fired an overnight barrage at Ukraine of more than 300 drones, four cruise missiles and three ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian air force said.

Trump said two weeks ago he would implement “severe tariffs” on Russia unless a peace deal is reached by early September, as he expressed exasperation with Putin over the bombardment of Ukrainian cities amid the Republican president’s attempts to stop the fighting.

Trump said he would give Putin 10 to 12 days from Monday, meaning he wants peace efforts to make progress by Aug. 7-9. The plan includes possible sanctions and secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s trading partners. The formal announcement would come later Monday or on Tuesday, he said.

“No reason in waiting,” Trump said of the shorter timeline. “We just don’t see any progress being made.”

Putin has “got to make a deal. Too many people are dying,” Trump said during a visit to Scotland.

Trump repeated his criticism of Putin for talking about ending the war but continuing to bombard Ukrainian civilians.

“And I say, that’s not the way to do it,” Trump said. He added, “I’m disappointed in President Putin.”

A Russian drone blew out the windows of a 25-story residential building in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, wrote on Telegram. Eight people were injured, including a 4-year-old girl, he said.

The attack also started a fire in Kropyvnytskyi, in central Ukraine, local officials said, but no injuries were reported.

The main target of the Russian attack was Starokostiantyniv, in the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine, the air force said. Regional authorities reported no damage or casualties.

The western part of Ukraine is on the other side of the country from the front line, and the Ukrainian military is believed to have significant airfields as well as arsenals and depots there.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces carried out an overnight strike with long-range, air-launched weapons, hitting a Ukrainian air base along with an ammunition depot containing stockpiles of missiles and components for drone production.

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Associated Press journalist Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

President Donald Trump on Monday reduced to less than two weeks his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to either reach a peace deal with Ukraine or face massive “secondary tariffs” on Moscow’s trade partners.

Trump previously gave Putin a 50-day deadline, which was set to expire in early September.

But he signalled Monday that things were taking too long, saying “I’m going to make a new deadline of about …10 or 12 days from today.”

“I’m disappointed in President Putin,” Trump said in Scotland alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“Russia and Ukraine — I would have said five times we had a deal,” Trump said. “I spoke to President Putin a lot. Got along with him very well.”

“Then President Putin launches rockets into a city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people — in a nursing home, or wherever — and there are bodies lying all over the street,” he said.

“There’s no reason they’re waiting,” Trump said. “I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”

He later said that he likely will formally announce the revision in the deadline “tonight or tomorrow,” adding that the U.S. would impose sanctions along with the secondary tariffs.

“But there’s no reason to wait. If you know what the answer is going to be, why wait?” Trump said.

Trump imposed a 50-day deadline on Putin on July 14. At that time, he said that buyers of Russian exports would face tariffs “at about 100%” if there were no ceasefire deal with Ukraine by September.

Trump once avoided criticizing Putin. But in recent months, he has made his frustrations known as Russia’s war on Ukraine has intensified.

Trump has complained that Putin will suggest in their phone calls that he is open to ending hostilities with Ukraine, but then will quickly order new military actions. (CNBC)

Trump said during the press availability with Starmer that the Epstein files are a “hoax” that he said has been “built up way beyond proportion.”

“Those files were run by the worst scum on Earth,” Trump said in answer to a reporter’s question about his recent denial of reports that Justice Department officials had told him his name appeared in the files, which NBC News has not independently confirmed.

“They were run by Comey, they were run by Garland, they were run by Biden, and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the auto-pen,” Trump said, referring to former FBI director James Comey, whom he fired during his first term, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former President Joe Biden.

“Those files were run for four years by those people,” Trump continued. “If they had anything, I assume they would have released it. The whole thing is a hoax. They ran the files. I was running against somebody that ran the files, if they had something, they would have released it. Now they can easily put something in the files that’s a phony,” he said.

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CNN —

President Donald Trump on Monday laid out a pair of steps intended to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine, including funneling new weapons to Kyiv and threatening economic punishment on Moscow if peace isn’t reached in 50 days, as he grows increasingly disenchanted with his Russian counterpart.

Taken together, the moves amount to a markedly new approach to the conflict, which Trump has worked to distance himself from since taking office in January. Even as he delivered the announcement from the Oval Office, the president argued he wasn’t to blame for the prolonged war.

Still, he appeared entirely fed up with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he acknowledged American weaponry – however it is delivered – would be necessary if Kyiv is to stave off a full-bore invasion.

“I felt we had a deal about four times,” Trump said, referring to a prospective peace agreement with Russia. “But it just kept going on and on.”

The plan the president unveiled Monday – which would see European nations purchase American weapons, then transfer them to Ukraine – has been under discussion for months, ever since Trump won last year’s election and European officials quickly began deliberating on ways to sustain US weapons shipments to Ukraine under a leader who had vowed to pull back American support.

Eight months later, the president announced the plan during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. The president also laid out his new deadline for Russia — threatening trade consequences if no peace deal is reached with Ukraine within 50 days.

“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days,” Trump said. “Tariffs at about 100%, you’d call them secondary tariffs. You know what that means.”

“I use trade for a lot of things,” Trump said. “But it’s great for settling wars.”

A White House official clarified to CNN that when the president referred to “secondary tariffs,” he meant 100% tariffs on Russia and secondary sanctions on other countries that buy Russian oil. The US conducts very little trade with Russia, making the secondary sanctions the piece with potentially the most bite.

“They’re secondary sanctions. It’s sanctions on countries that are buying the oil from Russia. So it’s really not about sanctioning Russia,” Matt Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at the White House. “It’s about tariffs on countries like India and China that are buying their oil. It really is going to dramatically impact the Russian economy.”

Underpinning the president’s two announcements Monday was his newfound irritation toward Putin, with whom he shares a long and sometimes confounding relationship. Once complimentary of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, Trump appeared angry that his overtures on ending the war have been mostly ignored in Moscow.

“My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” Trump said, even as he denied falling into a trap set for his predecessors: “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden — he didn’t fool me.”

Sitting alongside Trump, Rutte described the weapons agreement as a game-changer. He identified several nations – including Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway – as potential suppliers of the new equipment.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday night that he had a “very good conversation” with Trump and that the pair had agreed to catch up more often by phone.

“I’m grateful to our team and to the United States, Germany, and Norway for preparing a new decision on Patriots for Ukraine,” he wrote on X, adding that: “We are also working on major defense agreements with America.”

“Ukraine is absolutely ready for all honest and effective steps toward peace – lasting peace – and real security. It is Russia that isn’t ready. It is Russia that must be forced. And this is whatʼs happening,” Zelensky wrote.

After a separate call with Rutte, Zelensky said there would also be “deliveries of other weapons to protect [the] lives of our people and repel Russian assaults.”

For Trump’s part, the new European contribution was welcome. He described himself as newly impressed with the continent’s willingness to shoulder some of the burden of the war.

“Europe has a lot of spirit for this war. When I first got involved I really didn’t think they did, but they do,” he said. “The level of esprit de corps they have is amazing.”

The president described sending a “full complement” of weapons as part of the new arrangement. In addition to Patriot missile batteries — the top item on Kyiv’s wish list and one Trump said Sunday was vital to Ukraine’s defenses — the US could also sell short-range missiles, Howitzer rounds and medium-range air-to-air missiles to NATO members, which would then be transferred to Ukraine, a person familiar with the deliberations said ahead of the announcement.

Whitaker, the US NATO envoy, said the immediate focus on shipping weapons to Ukraine was on defensive systems, like the Patriot batteries that can intercept Russian ballistic missiles. But he didn’t rule out providing offensive weapons.

“All weapons are both offensive and defensive,” he said. “Obviously an air defense system is important and critical for the situation, but at the same time we’re not taking anything off the table.”

Securing more Patriot batteries is a major win for Ukraine. The threat of losing access to these air defense systems has long been among Ukraine’s biggest worries as they play a key role in protecting the lives of millions of Ukrainian civilians.

The thinking behind Trump’s decision on weapons is multifold, officials said.

By selling weapons to European nations, rather than transferring them to Ukraine itself, Trump hopes to insulate himself from political criticism that he is reversing a campaign pledge to reduce the US role in the years-long war.

He is also expecting a financial windfall: Each Patriot missile system costs roughly $1 billion, and he has already touted the profits for the US as part of the scheme.

American officials also noted it would be quicker to get the Patriot systems to Ukraine if they are already in Europe as opposed to moving them from the United States or producing them new at a US factory.

And, at least in the view of some US officials, providing Ukraine with a surge in new weaponry could send a signal to Moscow that Trump is serious about his frustrations with Putin, who the US leader accused of peddling “bullshit” last week.

“He’s seriously frustrated with Putin,” a US official said. “He wants to show he’s serious about ending the war, and maybe this will show Putin it’s time to start negotiating.”

When asked in an interview with the BBC if he was “done” with Putin, Trump said that he is “disappointed in him, but I’m not done with him.”

“We had a deal done four times and then you go home and you see (that Russia) just attacked a nursing home or something in Kyiv. So what the hell was that all about?” he said in the interview, which aired on Tuesday.

The plan to funnel US weapons to Ukraine was discussed in earnest around last month’s NATO summit in the Netherlands, where Trump met with European leaders and the Ukrainian president for talks described by people familiar as surprisingly productive.

But its origins actually came months earlier, after Trump won last year’s election — thrusting US support for Kyiv into fresh doubt. European officials, at that stage, began conceiving of a way to allow for continued weapons support to Ukraine even if Trump pulled back Washington’s role, as he had promised as a candidate.

For the last two weeks, officials in the US and Europe have been working on the details of how the plan would operate. NATO does not itself dispatch weapons to Ukraine, but rather acts as a clearinghouse, coordinating deliveries from individual countries.

The mechanism for transferring the weapons could include European nations transferring weapons already bought from the United States and backfilling them with new purchases. Or they could purchase new US weapons for immediate transfer to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looks on during a visit to a military training area to find out about the training of Ukrainian soldiers on the “Patriot” anti-aircraft missile system, at an undisclosed location, in Germany, June 11, 2024. Jens Buttner/Pool/Reuters

Trump spoke last week to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said on the call he was looking for the US to deliver the systems to Germany so they could be transferred to Ukraine, a person familiar with the call said.

Trump also spoke on Thursday with Rutte to discuss the initiative and lay plans for the secretary general’s visit to the White House on Monday.

Rutte later spoke with top US military officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to delve further into the details of the plan.

On that call, Rutte said he’d received several messages of interest from European nations looking to join in, a person familiar said.

Ukraine has said it needs 10 new Patriot systems to protect itself against Russia’s increased onslaught of missiles and drones.

At last month’s NATO meeting in the Netherlands, Zelensky presented Trump and other leaders with a list of weaponry he said his country needs to stave off Russia’s invasion, according to a US official.

Trump has signed off on some of the items.

And while much of the American military equipment that is used by the Ukrainians on the battlefield can be sourced elsewhere, produced domestically or replaced with alternatives – the Patriots are currently irreplaceable. Ukrainian soldiers even told CNN earlier this month that their biggest immediate worry wasn’t the loss of weapon deliveries for the frontlines, but the lack of Patriot missiles protecting their families and loved ones across Ukrainian cities.

CNN’s Alayna Treene, Ivana Kottasová and Catherine Nicholls contributed to this report.

This story and headline have been updated with additional information.

Donald Trump has given Vladimir Putin less than two weeks to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face heavy sanctions.

Speaking to reporters alongside Sir Keir Starmer at his Turnberry Golf Club in Scotland, the US president said he did not see “any progress” being made towards a ceasefire.

“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today. There’s no reason in waiting, there’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days, I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made,” Mr Trump said.

The US president had threatened earlier this month to impose “very severe” tariffs on countries that trade with Russia if it did not agree to a ceasefire in 50 days – or by Sept 5.

But on Monday, he revealed that he would reduce that deadline because he was “very disappointed in President Putin”.

“We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever,” he said.

“You have bodies lying all over the street, and I say that’s not the way to do it. So we’ll see what happens with that.”