WASHINGTON — President Trump made an abrupt announcement about two hours into his private, roughly three-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin Friday — declaring he wanted a full peace deal in Ukraine rather than a cease-fire, The Post has learned.
Convinced there were relatively few matters left to resolve, and believing a truce would only prolong the war, Trump set aside his publicly stated goal of a temporary halt in fighting.
“Figuratively, the president sort of threw up his hands and said, ‘I’m not interested in a cease-fire anymore,'” a source familiar with the discussion said. 5
Trump expressed concern that the “focus of the cease-fire” would be on “how long the cease fire will be” and “are they going to rearm?”
The pivot yielded “no pushback from the Russians,” leading Trump to