United States President Donald Trump on Friday said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in regions near Russia in response to threats from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
“I have ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances.”
In a post on X from July 28, Medvedev, a close ally of Putin and the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, said Trump was playing “a game of ultimatums” that could lead to a war involving the US.
In response to a post by US Senator Lindsey Graham reiterating America’s seriousness to reach a peace deal, the former Russian president wrote: “It’s not for you or Trump to dictate when to ‘get at the peace table’. Negotiations will end when all the objectives of our military operation have been achieved.
“Work on America first, gramps!”
Earlier today, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow hoped for more peace talks with Ukraine but that the momentum of the war was in its favour, signalling no shift in his stance despite a looming sanctions deadline from Washington.
Trump has said he will impose new sanctions on Moscow and countries that buy its energy exports — of which the biggest are China and India — unless Russia moves by August 8 to end the three-and-a-half-year war.
Trump has expressed mounting frustration with Putin, accusing him of “bullshit” and describing Russia’s latest attacks on Ukraine as “disgusting”.
Putin, without referring to the Trump deadline, said three sessions of peace talks with Ukraine had yielded some positive results, and Russia was expecting negotiations to continue.
“As for any disappointments on the part of anyone, all disappointments arise from inflated expectations. This is a well-known general rule,” he said.
“But in order to approach the issue peacefully, it is necessary to conduct detailed conversations. And not in public, but this must be done calmly, in the quiet of the negotiation process.”
He said Russian troops were attacking Ukraine along the entire front line and that the momentum was in their favour, citing the announcement by his defence ministry on Thursday that Moscow’s forces had captured the Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar after a 16-month battle.
Ukraine denied that Chasiv Yar was under full Russian control.
Kyiv has, for months, been urging an immediate ceasefire, but Russia says it wants a final and durable settlement, not a pause. Since the peace talks began in Istanbul in May, it has conducted some of its heaviest air strikes of the war, especially on the capital Kyiv.
The Ukrainian government has said the Russian negotiators do not have the mandate to make significant decisions and that President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Putin to meet him for talks.
“We understand who makes the decisions in Russia and who must end this war. The whole world understands this too,” Zelensky said on Friday on X, reiterating his call for direct talks between him and Putin.
“The United States has proposed this. Ukraine has supported it. What is needed is Russia’s readiness.” Russia says a leaders’ meeting could only take place to set the seal on agreements reached by negotiators.
Ukraine and its European allies have frequently said they do not believe Putin is really interested in peace and have accused him of stalling, which the Kremlin denies.
“I will repeat once again, we need a long and lasting peace on good foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and ensure the security of both countries,” Putin said, adding that this was also a question of European security.
Putin was speaking alongside his ally Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, at talks on an island in Lake Ladoga that is the site of a famous Russian monastery.
Russian TV earlier showed the two men greeting monks at the Valaam Monastery, where they have met several times before, and holding candles during the chanting of prayers.
Ukrainians mourn 31 killed in Russian strike on Kyiv
Meanwhile, Ukrainian rescuers recovered more than a dozen more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed apartment block in Kyiv overnight, bringing the death toll from Russia’s worst air strike of the year on Ukraine’s capital to 31.
A two-year-old was among the five children found dead after Thursday’s sweeping Russian drone and missile attack, Zelensky said on Friday, announcing the end of a more than 24-hour-long rescue operation.
A total of 159 people were wounded in the multi-wave strike, in which Russia launched more than 300 drones and eight missiles early on Thursday, the latest in a campaign of fierce strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities.
The worst damage was to an apartment building that partially collapsed in the Sviatoshyn district in western Kyiv. Damage was also reported in at least three other districts of the capital.
Natalia Matviyenko, 65, sitting near the damaged apartment building, said she did not place much faith in Trump’s tough rhetoric.
“Trump just says, ‘I’m upset with President Putin’s behaviour.’ And what? No results,” she said.
The US leader, who returned to power on a pledge to swiftly end the war, has in recent weeks rolled back his earlier conciliatory approach toward Moscow and signalled openness to arming Ukraine.
But a diplomatic effort to end the war has stalled, with Moscow not backing down from what Kyiv and its allies describe as maximalist demands.
‘Will Putin listen?’
On Friday, mourners laid flowers and lit candles at the wrecked apartment block, where rumbling excavators hoisted heavy pieces of rubble. The makeshift shrine included brightly coloured stuffed animals.
Oksana Kinal, 43, who was placing flowers to honour a co-worker who had been killed alongside a son, said she hoped Trump would follow up on his threat but also expressed doubt.
“I think America has a lot of points of leverage that can be used against Russia,” she said. “But will Putin listen to this? I don’t know.”
Kyiv’s air force said on Friday that Ukrainian air defences had destroyed more than 6,000 drones and missiles across the country in July alone.
“The world possesses every instrument required to ensure Russia is brought to justice,” Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on X on Friday. “What is lacking is not power but will.”