US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was shortening the deadline for Russia to agree to a cease-fire in Ukraine from 50 days to “10-12 days” has been met with near-silence from the Kremlin and a fresh wave of deadly attacks on Ukrainian cities, suggesting that Moscow may be ready to call his bluff.
Trump made the comments on July 28, during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland.
He was referring to an ultimatum he gave earlier this month for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a cease-fire or face “very severe tariffs.” At the time, Trump also suggested tariff hikes for countries that purchase Russian energy exports.
Putin's spokesman Dmitri Peskov gave a terse response on July 29, saying the Kremlin had "taken note" of Trump's comments without elaborating. He added that he would not comment on another Trump remark that he was "no longer interested" in talks with Putin.
The Kremlin's taciturn response speaks volumes, according to political analyst Boris Pastukhov.
“Putin is waiting,” he told RFE/RL’s Current Time. “To know what to say next, he needs to understand exactly how Trump plans to behave.”
Trump has a track record of shifting deadlines, particularly when it comes to tariffs.
On this occasion, he said he was shortening the timeframe because “when you deal with someone long enough, you know what they’re going to do — or not do.”
By contrast, it’s not only unclear whether Trump will again shift the deadline. It’s also not certain what measures he would impose if he decided to act.
Tariffs on Russian goods would have little impact, since Russia exports so little to the United States anyway. It’s a storm the Kremlin could weather.
Secondary sanctions would significantly raise the stakes – not only in Trump’s dealings with Putin, but also in his relations with countries like China and India, which have been helping finance Russia's war on Ukraine through the purchasing of Russian oil.
Pastukhov said Putin was now deliberately keeping his cards close to his chest and waiting for Trump to play his.
“Trump isn’t just unpredictable to ordinary people -- he’s unpredictable to the Kremlin as well. They don’t know what to expect from him, so they’re keeping their next move in reserve," he said.
Amid the Kremlin’s silence, Russian media and lesser officials have been repeating phrases of stock defiance.
Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said Trump’s approach might be good for dealing with “regional conflicts” but could not be applied to Russia or China.
Likewise, former president Dmitri Medvedev, who is currently deputy head of the country’s Security Council, wrote that “Russia is not Israel or Iran” and warned Trump against “playing the ultimatum game with Russia.”
When Trump said that he was shortening the deadline, he noted that he was “very disappointed” with Putin, words he also used when he announced his original ultimatum.
At the time, analysts also said that they did not expect Putin to change tack as a result of Trump’s threats.
“China and India are the top two recipients of Russian energy exports, and the expectation that they will pressure Putin to end his war in the next 50 days seems naïve,” Michael McFaul, a political science professor at Stanford University and the US ambassador to Russia in 2012-14, wrote in Time Magazine.
“To me, it’s clear that Putin does not want any cease-fire, at least not until he gains control over all the regions that are defined as Russian in his version of the constitution,” Dmitry Gudkov, a former opposition lawmaker in the Russian parliament, told Current Time on July 16.
Indeed, Trump’s latest comments were followed by another night of air attacks on targets in Ukraine that included a hospital in Kamyanske and a prison in the Zaporizhzhya region where at least 17 people were killed.
Russian media on July 28 continued to emphasize that Russia would keep pushing on the battlefield.
Amid Kremlin silence, both Russia’s actions and its public discourse have been unchanged by the new ultimatum.
