In perhaps his harshest rhetoric yet against Putin, Trump declared that Putin is “playing with fire” — a reference to Russia’s escalating bombardment of Ukraine in recent days despite the U.S. president’s efforts to broker a peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow.
Trump has offered mixed messages about Putin, oscillating between praise of a leader with whom he has said he believes he can do business and frustration about his inability to bring Russia to the bargaining table.
The frustration appears to have boiled over this week. On Tuesday, he suggested that he had been shielding Putin from tough consequences related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!” Trump posted on Truth Social…..
….
But it was still unclear whether Trump was truly prepared to impose more sanctions, and he has kept quiet about whether he supports a bipartisan effort in Congress to bolster them. Russia has faced years of U.S. sanctions, although experts say they could be tightened against its energy and banking sector….
…
Republican’s in Congress Talking Russian Sanctions
A small but vocal group of Republicans in Congress is pushing to escalate pressure on Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, diverging sharply from President Trump’s more conciliatory stance after months of staying mostly quiet and deferring to his hands-off approach.
The shift intensified over the weekend in the wake of Russia’s most aggressive wave of attacks since the war began. But it has been building for weeks as Senate Republicans and Democrats alike have signed on to legislation that would impose sweeping sanctions on Moscow. The bill now has 80 cosponsors, more than enough to override a veto in that chamber.
The same measure in the House has garnered little backing in either party, making a showdown with Mr. Trump on the issue unlikely, at least in the short term. But the movement in the Senate suggests an increasingly hawkish mood on Capitol Hill and a growing frustration with Russia’s intransigence among Republicans, who are ramping up their calls for decisive action.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, is leading the bipartisan push on the Russia sanctions bill, along with Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. Last week, speaking from the Senate floor, Mr. Graham appeared to be aiming his remarks directly at the president in a bid to persuade him that any influence he may imagine he has over President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia does not appear to be having much impact….
…
-
A major Ukrainian drone attack late over Tuesday night into Wednesday led to at least two Moscow airports, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky, suspending flights, Russian authorities said. The defence ministry said 112 Ukrainian drones targeted six different regions in the three hours up to midnight.
-
Russian drones hit the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, injuring eight people including a child, the regional military governor said on Wednesday morning. Ukraine’s air force issued an air raid alert due to drones across regions including Kharkiv, Sumy, Odesa, Kyiv and others.
-
Russian authorities were again dismissive of Donald Trump after the US president said Vladimir Putin was “playing with fire” and putting Russia at risk of “really bad things”. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former prime minister and president, responded: “I only know of one really bad thing – WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” As Trump makes no progress on his promise to end the war in as little as a day, the Kremlin has also said the US president is suffering “emotional overload”. Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, called Medvedev’s third world war comment “reckless” and called on Russia to “cease fire immediately” and provide a promised but undelivered peace process memorandum.
-
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due on Wednesday to visit Berlin where the German chancellor, Friendrich Merz, has pledged more robust backing for Ukraine – inviting speculation that Germany might give its powerful Taurus missiles to Kyiv. Merz said on Monday that Germany along with other western allies had lifted previous range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine. But Deborah Cole writes that Merz faces nervousness from partners in his governing coalition.
-
Part of the US administration’s peace plan, say recent reports, would involve Washington recognising annexed Crimea as legitimate Russian territory. Mustafa Dzhemilev, a Soviet-era dissident turned Crimean Tatar political leader, tells Shaun Walker in an interview: “The whole world knows what happened in Crimea … It would be such a damage to the reputation of the US that it will be hard for them to recover. It would be shameful.” Of Donald Trump, Dzhemilev said Trump was “a person who feels no emotions, in whose head there is only deal-making … To say the things he says, to say Ukraine shouldn’t have started this war. Have they been keeping this man in the dark for the last years? Does he know anything? Has he read anything?”
ISW….Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 27, 2025
- The Kremlin is setting conditions to establish permanent control over the Russian-occupied Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), suggesting that Russia plans to illegally occupy and annex additional territory in Ukraine.
- Russian officials are likely leveraging the fact that Ukraine and Russia set no concrete deadlines for the next steps in the peace process in order to delay the process altogether and prolong the war.
- Putin continues to use orchestrated public engagements to forward the Kremlin’s effort to create a militarized Russian society united against the West that supports a prolonged war in Ukraine and possible future conflict with NATO.
- The European Union (EU) Council approved the first phase of the European Commission’s ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 plan.
- Ukraine’s Western allies continue to provide military aid to Ukraine.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Chasiv Yar. Russian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, Kupyansk, and Pokrovsk.
Daily Kos grunt report for Today…
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.