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Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to publicly respond to the 50-day ultimatum President Donald Trump issued him, though one top official on Tuesday suggested that Moscow “didn’t care.”
Deputy Chair of Russia’s security council and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took to X to express the Kremlin’s first reaction to the joint announcement by Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that Putin has 50 days to end its war in Ukraine or face 100% tariffs.
President Donald Trump, right, and Mark Rutte, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, shake hands during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday, July 14, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin. The world shuddered, expecting the consequences,” Medvedev said. “Belligerent Europe was disappointed.
“Russia didn’t care,” he added.
Reactions to Trump’s latest frustration with Putin were mixed, as Rutte championed the move as “logical,” though top European Union officials suggested the move lacked teeth this far into the war.
“On the one hand, it is very positive that President Trump is taking a strong stance on Russia. On the other hand, 50 days is a very long time if we see that they are killing innocent civilians, also every day,” the EU’s chief diplomat Kaja Kallas told reporters from Brussels when asked about the president’s announcement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and then Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev arrive to the Red Square Victory Day Parade on May 9, 2019 in Moscow. (Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
“It is clear that we all need to put more pressure on Russia so that they would also want peace,” she added. “It is good that the Americans are making the steps, and I hope that they are also giving military aid like Europeans are giving.”
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Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko also questioned the effectiveness of the move and told German news outlet ARD that “I’m happy about the wave of support from the U.S.”
“But on the other hand, I do not understand why Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is being given 50 days,” he added, according to a translation by Ukrainian media outlets, Kyiv Independent.
“In 50 days, many more people could be killed in the capital and, throughout Ukraine, many more buildings could be damaged,” he said. “Therefore, why such a delay?”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko holds people away from a five-story residential building that partially collapsed after a shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 18, 2022. (Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
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Trump told reporters on Monday that he was frustrated by Putin’s lack of action when it came to stopping his war in Ukraine despite four separate occasions when the president thought a deal had been reached with the Kremlin chief.
“I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done, and I always hang up saying, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call,’ and then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and I’d say ‘strange,'” Trump said, recounting his conversations with Putin.
“And after that happens three or four times, you say, the talk doesn’t mean anything.”