Trump: Putin Is ‘Playing With Fire’ After Stepped-Up Strikes

Update(11:55): It seems that the peace process will continue to unravel or at the very least stall. All of this points to further escalation on the horizon, despite President Trump’s constant assurances to the American public that he would quickly end this war.

The US President on Truth Social has just threatened Russia with “REALLY BAD” things and called out Putin for “playing with fire” following days of bigger drone and ballistic missile attacks on Kiev and other locales in Ukraine.

But geopolitical pundit Andrew Korybko offers an alternate view of what’s really happening. Are the hawks winning the argument within the administration?:

Trump is either being maliciously misinformed about the conflict from his trusted advisors (not counting Witkoff of course) or that he’s manipulatively creating the pretext for US escalation.

Trump’s latest angry post about Putin revealed a lot about how he perceives the Ukrainian Conflict. According to Trump, “[Putin] has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”

What’s really happening is that Russia ramped up its bombing campaign against Ukraine in response to Ukraine ramping up its drone one first, during which time Putin’s helicopter was almost downed after it was caught in a drone swarm while he was visiting Kursk last week. Zelensky earlier demanded that the US condemn Russia for its latest attacks after it was silent all week long, which Trump just complied with despite remaining suspiciously silent after Zelensky implicitly threatened Moscow’s Victory Day parade.

* * *

Russia has made clear on Tuesday that it will continue targeting military-related facilities in Ukraine in response to a drastic increase in drone raids launched by Ukrainian forces deep into Russian territory. The defense ministry (MoD) has condemned these attacks out of Ukraine as aimed at civilian infrastructure.

Kiev has simultaneously charged that Moscow is targeting hospitals, schools, and civilian residences after several consecutive days of large-scale drone and missile attacks. The past week has on the other side seen at least 2,000 UAVs sent against Russian territory.

Russia’s MoD released a statement which is without doubt trying to signal the Trump administration at a moment the US president is thinking about slapping more sanctions of Russia, amid frustration at lack of progress in peace negotiations.

It emphasizes that the retaliatory attacks are aimed “exclusively at Ukraine’s military and defense industrial facilities” – and it further provided a list of “military bases, warehouses, airfields, radar stations, as well as drone assembly, gun powder, and explosives plants.”

But something Trump is not going to respond well to is the following: “The Russian military will continue to carry out massive and group strikes in response to any terrorist attacks and provocations of the Kiev regime,” the MoD said. “The strikes will be carried out exclusively on military facilities and enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.”

The military statement stressed that at the moment Moscow is an open and willing participant in the US-backed peace talks, the latest which were held in Istanbul, it remains “the Kiev regime, supported by certain European countries, has taken a number of provocative steps aimed at disrupting the negotiation process.”

Currently, the Western mainstream media is trying to goad President Trump into escalating against Moscow, and likely hawks within the US administration are also seizing on the ‘popular’ pressure:

It dismissed Trump’s frustration with the most intense Russian drone attacks on Ukraine as a symptom of “emotional overload.” And experience suggests Putin can get away with calling the US president’s bluff. After all, Trump’s Truth Social critique of the Russian leader as “crazy” on Monday was leavened with a characteristic rebuke of the victim — Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Still, the intensifying Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians appear to be a deliberate Russian test for Trump, a week after his hyped call with Putin, which made no progress toward peace despite the White House spin.

But again, despite mounting casualties in Kiev and elsewhere from the waves of aerial assaults, Moscow is insisting it is not targeting civilians.

This has been enough for Trump to signal that punitive measures against Russia could be coming. Trump is mulling imposing yet more sanctions on Russia this week, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

He said directly starting Sunday, as missiles on Kiev kept coming, that he is “absolutely” considering them. Putin is “killing a lot of people” and that “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. What the hell happened to him?”

WSJ detailed, “The restrictions likely wouldn’t include new banking sanctions, one of the people said, but other options are under discussion to pressure the Russian leader into concessions at the negotiating table, including a 30-day cease-fire supported by Ukraine that Russia has long rejected.” This was all supposedly based on “people familiar with Trump’s thinking.”

More importantly, this would be seen as the abandonment of already fragile efforts and finding a truce deal. Yet the sanctions would likely have little impact, given they would be something like the 18th wave of US sanctions, as Russia has increased its reliance on China trade, and other BRICS countries.

Time to renew dialogue with Russia!

I am in Moscow at the invitation of the State Duma to discuss with Russian counterparts the many pressing issues that our countries and our continent faces.

I will meet with members of government and the two chambers of Parliament, today and… pic.twitter.com/vQvlBtpekC

— Fernand Kartheiser (@FernKartheiser) May 26, 2025

The timing couldn’t be worse in terms of potential for runaway escalation, given it was just on Monday that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Germany, France, the UK and US have lifted prior restrictions on how far the weapons they supply to Ukraine can reach. “Absolutely no limits…,” he said.

“There are absolutely no range limits anymore for weapons delivered to Ukraine, not from Britain, the French or from us — also not from the Americans,” Merz said speaking at a national security forum in Berlin on Monday. “That means Ukraine can defend itself by attacking military positions also in Russia.” This ‘greenlight’ would of course translate to Russia stepping up its own ballistic missile strikes across Ukraine and ‘command centers’ – and places where foreign advisers might be as well.

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