USA increase pressure from Trump and Putin’s phone call

Shortly before the planned phone call of US President Donald Trump and his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin, the United States increases the pressure on the Kremlin. Foreign Minister Marco Rubio told CBS News that the Russian government had been pointed out to the possibility of new sanctions and “quite clearly” expressed itself in the past few weeks. Trump and Putin want to make calls again on Monday and explore the chances of an end to the Russian attack war against Ukraine.

Rubio said on Saturday (local time) on request that Moscow had been made clear that a large majority for additional measures are emerging in parliament if there is no progress in the Ukraine talks. The government had asked the congress for a little delay to leave room for negotiations, but ultimately could not stop the process. When asked whether Moscow only wanted to win time, Rubio said: “That’s exactly what we’re testing.”

In the United States, sanctions are usually imposed together with the executive. With a sufficiently large majority, the congress can also prescribe it to the government.

Trump and Putin call for the third time since January Trump announced with a view to the planned phone call: “Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire comes about and this very violent war (…) comes to an end”. The Kremlin confirmed the planned phone call. The two presidents have already made calls twice since Trump’s took office in January. The US President has declared the goal of ending the Russian attack war in Ukraine as quickly as possible.

On Friday, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Istanbul for the first time in more than three years to negotiate the war. Both sides were able to agree on a large prisoner exchange, but there was no agreement on the subject of ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) spoke in favor of the end of the war in Ukraine for the closer integration of Italy. After meeting the right -wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday evening in Rome, Merz said: “We agreed that Italy had to play a role here.”

The Chancellor did not say exactly what this will mean when he was visited in Italy. He announced that he will have talks with other European partners in the next few days. “We must not be divided apart in the European Union. There are also not members of first or second class.”

In Italy, Irritations had caused irritation that Meloni recently was not there when visiting state and government heads from France, Great Britain, Poland and Germany in Kiev. According to media reports, this is said to have happened at the urging of French President Emmanuel Macron. Meloni said – without name – that now it may be the moment to “give up personal sensitivities that threaten to undermine the important and fundamental unity of the West”. Meloni’s independent predecessor Mario Draghi was still there on an earlier Kiev trip.

Merz made it clear that he supported the EU Commission’s proposal to prevent the operation of the North Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in new sanctions against Russia. He said that after meeting Meloni in Rome.

On Saturday last week, Merz ultimately asked Macron, the British Prime Minister Keir and the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire. In the event of a refusal, they had threatened with sanctions. However, Russia let the deadline spread.

Now the Europeans want to lace up a new sanction package, which is primarily intended to affect the financial and energy sector. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the first details on Friday and called North Stream.

The offer of the Vatican to act as a place of possible further discussions between Russia and Ukraine – not only for a possible meeting of Putin with the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj, but also for other negotiations – called Rubio very generously. All sides could feel comfortable there. “Hopefully we can get so far that discussions take place regularly and the Vatican has the opportunity to be one of the options,” said Rubio.