US And Russia Trade Blows Over Escalating Ukraine War

The United States and Russia clashed publicly on Wednesday over the escalating war in Ukraine after U.S. President Donald Trump accused President Vladimir Putin of “playing with fire” and Moscow deployed 50,000 troops near a Ukrainian region.

While world leaders bicker over the prospects for peace, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two is heating up fast: swarms of drones are being launched by both sides while Russia is advancing at key points along the front.

US-Russia Strife 

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said that Putin was playing with fire and cautioned that “REALLY BAD” things would have happened already to Russia if it was not for Trump himself.

“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realise is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened in Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.

Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told a state TV reporter that Trump’s remark suggested that he is not well-briefed on the realities of the war.

“Trump is not sufficiently informed about what is really happening in the context of the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation,” Ushakov said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was clear the Trump administration is making “considerable efforts towards a peaceful settlement” and that Russia was “grateful for the mediation efforts of President Trump personally.”

“Just like the United States, Russia has its own national interests, which are above all for us, and they are above all for our president,” Peskov said.

After speaking to Trump on May 19, Putin said he had agreed to work with Ukraine on a memorandum which would set out the contours of a peace accord, including the timing of a ceasefire.

Peskov said Russia was preparing for the next round of negotiations with Ukraine and to continue contacts with the United States.

But U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that Trump was losing patience with Russia.

“His patience has worn thin,” Bruce said in an interview with Fox News. Trump, who has known Putin for some time, “feels that something has happened to him, and he’s unable to explain it, and clearly he’s quite frustrated enough to express that outrage in public.”

Ukraine War Intensifying 

With Trump and the Kremlin trading barbs, the war intensified.

Russia said it had downed 296 Ukrainian drones over 13 regions overnight, while Ukraine said Russia had launched 88 drones and five ballistic missiles.

After Russia ejected Ukrainian forces from the western Kursk region, Moscow’s forces have pushed over the border into the neighbouring Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine and taken several villages there.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia has gathered 50,000 troops near the northern Sumy region but added that Kyiv had taken steps to prevent Moscow from conducting a large-scale offensive there.

Speaking in Berlin during a visit by Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Germany and Ukraine will develop the joint production of long-range missiles, a move the Kremlin said was irresponsible and amounted to stoking the war.

(With inputs from Reuters)