"What Vladimir Putin doesn't realize is that if it weren't for me, many really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD", writes Trump on his platform Truth Social.
It is not clear what he is referring to in the president's post.
Trump has adopted a new tone when speaking about Russia's president over the past week. On Sunday, he declared that Vladimir Putin has become "completely crazy" in an upset post on social media. In connection with this, he also said that he is considering new sanctions against Russia, which according to media reports may happen this week.
Republican Support
In the American Senate, there is broad support for both new, powerful sanctions against Russia and for new military support packages to Ukraine. So too among Republicans.
"If Putin continues to play games, the Senate will act", writes the largely Trump-loyal Republican senator Lindsey Graham in a debate article in the Wall Street Journal.
Putin is starting to get close to burning the golden bridge that Trump has laid out before him, says an anonymous government source to Politico.
Trump's former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker tells the news site that he doubts whether the president will ever take action against Russia, since "he has had so many opportunities to do so and has always ducked it".
Can Step Back
Ukraine and its other allies have for a longer time been calling for concrete actions or threats of actions from the government after the power shift there in January – but there are also fears that Trump will make good on his threat to "completely withdraw" from the war and that he will then pull the rug from under Ukraine.
Trump has since his inauguration pressured the country by freezing military support and forcing the invaded country to give the US part of future mineral revenues. Currently, no new military support is on its way.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held a long telephone conversation last week, where the leader was said to have promised to immediately discuss a ceasefire.
During the past week, attack drones and robots have been pounding Ukraine with new force and with additional Ukrainian deaths. Only on Tuesday did the Russian attacks subside somewhat. The Kremlin then accused Ukraine of having provoked the escalation.
