A Republican US senator expressed concern for the 50-day period and said that “Putin would try to use the 50 days to win the war, or to be better positioned to negotiate a peace agreement.”
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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday warned that Brazil, China and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia, something which US President Donald Trump had been repeating for a while. Rutte said this in a meeting with senators in the US Congress.
The remark came a day after President Donald Trump announced new weapons for Ukraine and threatened “biting” secondary tariffs of 100% on the buyers of Russian exports unless there is a peace deal in 50 days.
“My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard,” Rutte told reporters, after meeting Trump on Monday, reported Reuters.
“So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way,” Rutte warned.
Republican US Senator Thom Tillis expressed concern for the 50-day period and said that “Putin would try to use the 50 days to win the war, or to be better positioned to negotiate a peace agreement after having murdered and potentially collected more ground as a basis for negotiation”.
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“So we should look at the current state of Ukraine today and say, no matter what you do over the next 50 days, any of your gains are off the table,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Rutte said Europe would find the money to ensure Ukraine was in the best possible position during the peace talks, adding that under the new agreement with Trump, the US would now “massively” supply Ukraine with weapons “not just air defense, also missiles, also ammunition paid for by the Europeans.”