By Alayna Treene, CNN

(CNN) — Two weeks after his high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump is growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of tangible progress he’s made to end the war in Ukraine and is contemplating how involved he should be personally in brokering a meeting between Kremlin and Ukrainian leaders, administration officials tell CNN.

The president, the officials say, is particularly irritated with the pace of negotiations and lack of progress following his meeting with the Russian leader.

Just 72 hours after the face-to-face with Putin in Alaska, Trump gathered seven European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, stepping away to call his Russian counterpart as he sought to broker peace. But since then, progress has slowed dramatically. And in public, Trump has sometimes downplayed the role he would have to play in bringing about an end to the war — or even bringing the Russians and Ukrainians to the bargaining table.

“It’s gotta be up to them. It takes two to tango,” Trump said Monday in response to questions about whether Russia has committed to a meeting with Zelensky.

As Trump has privately stewed, Putin has shown no signs of ending his country’s relentless bombing campaign on Ukraine. This week saw one of the deadliest attacks on Ukraine since the start of the war, with at least 25 people killed, including four children, according to Zelensky.

Trump “was not happy about this news, but he was also not surprised,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters after the assault, adding that Trump was watching the developments “intently.”

Normally not one to hold back his condemnation, Trump himself was notably silent — even as European leaders expressed outrage over Russia’s actions, which damaged buildings belonging to the European Union and the British Council. Both the EU and the United Kingdom summoned top Russian diplomats in their capitals as a result.

Trump has in the past threatened “severe consequences” on Putin if he did not end the war. Last week, he said he would know within “two weeks” whether Russia was serious about entering negotiations — invoking a deadline he has frequently cited, only it see it come and go without actions. But in those same comments, he floated the possibility of walking away altogether, a possibility he has yet to rule out, officials said.

After those two weeks are up, Trump said, “I’m going to make a decision as to what we do. … it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs, or both, or do we do nothing and say, ‘It’s your fight.’”

Pressed by CNN on whether he’s seriously considering doing nothing, Trump said: “I’ll see who’s fault it is. If there are reasons why, I’ll understand that. I know exactly what I’m doing. We’re going to see whether or not they have a meeting, that will be interesting to see, and if they don’t, why didn’t they have a meeting because I told them to have a meeting. But I’ll know in two weeks what I’m going to do.”

While the Trump administration continues to weigh its options, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s foreign envoy, met on Friday with Ukrainian officials in New York City ahead of Kyiv’s emergency UN Security Council meeting. Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s office of the president and chief of staff, and Sergiy Kyslytsya, first deputy foreign minister, were among those in attendance. The meeting came a day after the Trump administration approved a $825 million sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles to Ukraine.

The major question is whether the administration can successfully broker a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, which Trump has aggressively pushed for both in public and private conversations. Top Trump officials, including Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have said that such a meeting was a necessary next step to negotiating an end to the war.

“World leaders have affirmed that President Trump made more progress towards peace in two weeks than Joe Biden did in three-and-a-half years,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CNN in a statement. “President Trump’s national security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukrainian officials towards a bilateral meeting to stop the killing and end the war.”

While Zelensky has agreed to a face-to-face meeting with Putin, the Kremlin has so far thrown cold water on the idea, leaving broader talks about how to move forward at a stalemate.

The-CNN-Wire
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