Russia-Ukraine war: Donald Trump threatens sanctions, tells two countries to get to negotiating table ‘right now’

US President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of imposing large-scale sanctions on Russia, days after pausing aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, and called on both countries to get on with negotiating a peace deal.

Trump’s threat of banking curbs and tariffs followed a major Russian missile attack overnight that damaged energy and gas infrastructure inside Ukraine that officials in Kyiv said injured 10 people, including a child.

“Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large-scale banking sanctions, sanctions, and tariffs on Russia until a cease fire and final settlement agreement on peace is reached. ,” Mr Trump said.

“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”

Russian forces have almost surrounded thousands of Ukrainian troops who invaded Russia’s Kursk region last northern summer in a shock incursion that Ukraine had hoped to use as leverage over Russia in any peace talks.

Ukraine’s situation in Kursk has deteriorated sharply in the last three days, open source maps show.

The Russian counteroffensive has nearly cut the Ukrainian force in two and separated the main group from its principal supply lines.

“The situation (for Ukraine in Kursk) is very bad,” Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, told Reuters.

There was no official confirmation of the Russian thrust from either Russia or Ukraine, which both tend to report battlefield developments with a delay.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, seeking to shore up foreign support for Ukraine, responded to the missile attack by calling for a truce covering air and sea.

“The first steps to establishing real peace should be forcing the sole source of this war, Russia, to stop such attacks,” Mr Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, is already subject to wide-ranging sanctions imposed by the United States and its partners after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

US sanctions on Russia include measures aimed at limiting its oil and gas revenues, including a cap of $US60 per barrel on Russia’s oil exports.

Despite tension with Mr Trump, Mr Zelensky said late on Thursday he would travel to Saudi Arabia next Monday for a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before talks there later in the week between US and Ukrainian officials.

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has already held extensive talks with Russian officials.

He said he was in discussions with Ukraine for a peace agreement framework to end the three-year-old war and confirmed that a meeting was planned next week with the Ukrainian side in Saudi Arabia.

Ukraine has been pressing for robust security guarantees but the US has declined to commit, pointing to a potential critical minerals agreement that Trump believes would be enough.

Russia holds about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and its forces are steadily advancing in the eastern Donetsk region.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Russia and the US both see draft accords discussed by Russia and Ukraine in the early weeks of the war as a possible basis for a peace deal.

The draft documents - discussed at talks in Istanbul at the end of March 2022 - would have obliged Ukraine to give up its NATO ambitions and accept permanent neutral and nuclear-free status in return for security guarantees from the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

But the two sides disagreed over Russian demands, which included a right of veto over actions by the guarantor states to assist Ukraine in the event of an attack.

with AP