Russia on Tuesday said that it will cope with any new sanctions after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose “very severe” tariffs on the country if it failed to reach a deal with Ukraine to end the ongoing war. Moscow also rejected Trump’s 50-day “theatrical” ultimatum, calling it “unacceptable”.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded on Tuesday to these tariff threats saying, “I have no doubt we will cope with new sanctions.” He made the remarks while addressing a press conference at the 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organization Foreign Ministers meeting in China.
“We want to understand what the US President is moved by,” he added.
Lavrov’s remarks came a day after Trump announced his decision to impose “secondary tariffs” as high as 100% on Russia if it didn’t end war with Ukraine within 50 days. Trump had also outlined a NATO-backed military assistance plan for Ukraine, supported by European allies.
“We’re very, very unhappy with them. And we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days. Tariffs at about 100 per cent, you’d call them secondary tariffs,” Trump had said on Monday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also reacted to Trump’s warning, saying, “The US president’s statements are very serious. Some of them are addressed personally to President Putin.”
“We certainly need time to analyse what was said in Washington,” he told reporters, as quoted by news agency Reuters.
However, Peskov added that the decisions being made in Washington and other NATO capitals were clearly being “perceived by the Ukrainian side not as a signal for peace but as a signal to continue the war.”
Russia Slams Trump’s ‘Theatrical’ Ultimatum
Meanwhile, Former President and now deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev reacted to Trump’s 50-day deadline, saying that Moscow did not care about his “theatrical ultimatum”. Senior Russian diplomat Sergei Ryabkov also suggested that giving such ultimatums to Moscow was pointless and unacceptable, Reuters reported.
Trump on Monday expressed frustration over the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and said he was “very unhappy” and “disappointed” with President Vladimir Putin since the peace deal which he said was supposed to be signed two months ago was still pending. He said the United States had spent $350 billion on the war and now wanted to see an end to it.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was with Trump at the White House on Monday, backed the US President’s firm position on Russia. “If I was Vladimir Putin today, and you’re speaking about what you are planning to do in 50 days, I would reconsider whether I should not take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously,” Rutte said.
