‘Waste of Time’: Trump Shelves Putin Meeting as EU and Ukraine Slam Moscow’s Stalling Tactics

President Trump has poured cold water on the prospects of an imminent meeting with Russian President Putin, saying he doesn’t want to “waste time.”“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting. I don’t want to have a waste of time, so we’ll see what happens,” Mr. Trump said at the White House when asked about whether he would be meeting Mr. Putin soon. The president said that Russian and Ukrainian soldiers need to “pull back (and) go home. Everybody take some time off, because you got two countries that are killing each other, two countries are losing five to 7000 soldiers a week. So we’ll see what happens. We haven’t made a decision.”On Tuesday, Ukraine and EU leaders issued a joint statement, saying they “strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.”“We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force. Russia’s stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace. We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction,” the statement added. The leaders called for ramping up pressure on Russia’s economy and defence industry “until Putin is ready to make peace. We are developing measures to use the full value of Russia’s immobilised sovereign assets so that Ukraine has the resources it needs”Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile said that Moscow’s position has not changed. “It is now being said from Washington that there is a need to stop immediately, that there is no need to discuss anything further, and that ‘history should judge,’” Mr. Lavrov said. “If we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood and voiced this understanding upon Trump’s assumption of power,” he added. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is scheduled to meet Mr. Trump on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing war.

‘Waste of Time’: Trump Shelves Putin Meeting as EU and Ukraine Slam Moscow’s Stalling Tactics

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