You will find out pretty soon, said President Trump to reporters on the presidential plane Air Force One on Saturday, the day after his envoy Steve Witkoff once again met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Then Trump cryptically added:
It's going to come to a point where you either have to put up or shut up. We'll see what happens, but I think it's going to be fine.
"Colonial overlord demand"
Since Donald Trump took office in January, he has seemingly unsuccessfully tried to reach a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
Exactly what the USA wants in return is unclear. On Saturday, the day after a meeting with officials about a possible mineral agreement between Kyiv and Washington, The Guardian reported that the USA is demanding control over a key gas pipeline in Ukraine in exchange for continued American support. The pipeline in question is used to transport Russian gas to Europe.
Volodymyr Landa, economist at the Ukrainian think tank Centre for Economic Strategy, calls it a "colonial overlord demand" that Kyiv is unlikely to accept.
Accusing each other
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is accusing Ukraine of repeated violations of the partial ceasefire agreement regarding energy infrastructure, which the parties essentially agreed to last month, reports news agency AP.
Lavrov's Ukrainian counterpart, Andrij Sybiha, responds by accusing Russia of thousands of attacks on Ukraine since the agreement.
Russia has since fired "almost 70 rockets, over 2,200 drones and over 6,000 anti-tank missiles against Ukraine, most of them against civilians", claims Sybiha according to AP.
