A top Kremlin aide has accused Donald Trump of being “not sufficiently informed” about the situation in Ukraine after the US president said Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “playing with fire.”
Putin aide Yury Ushakov was reacting to Trump’s Truth Social post on Tuesday, in which the president said: “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”
Ushakov, a former Russian ambassador to Washington who was part of the negotiating team that Moscow sent to Saudi Arabia to meet US officials earlier this year, then questioned the accuracy of the information Trump receives.
“Trump says a lot of things. Naturally, we read and monitor all of this. But in many ways, we have come to the conclusion that Trump is not sufficiently informed about what is really happening in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation,” Ushakov told Russian state TV channel Russia-1.
Ushakov said that Trump appeared to be unaware of what he called “the increasingly frequent massive terrorist attacks Ukraine is carrying out against peaceful Russian cities,” and suggested Trump only sees Russia’s strikes, reiterating Moscow’s false claim that it is “striking exclusively at military infrastructure or the military-industrial complex.”
Ushakov’s remark – made to a favored Kremlin correspondent – came just after Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the Trump statements during a call with reporters.
Far from striking only military targets, Russia has recently intensified its aerial campaign against civilian targets in Ukrainian cities.
Dozens of civilians have been killed by Russian drone and missile strikes against residential areas in the past few weeks.
At least 14 civilians, including three children from one family, were killed in Russian air attacks over the weekend.
The funeral for the three siblings – 8-year-old Stanislav Martynyuk, his sister Tamara, 12, and Roman, 17 – was held in their hometown of Korostyshiv in central Ukraine on Wednesday.
Hundreds of people, many in tears, filled the town square as their three white coffins were brought in. A local music school, where the trio studied, rang the “last bell” for them, a nod to the traditional long bell sounded for the graduating class at the end of their last school year.
After Russia launched the attack that killed the Martynyuk children, its largest ever aerial assault on Ukraine, Trump accused the Russian leader of having gone “absolutely CRAZY.”
“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
The spat between Trump and Moscow escalated on Tuesday when the former Russian president and prime minister-turned-security-official Dmitry Medvedev responded to Trump’s threat by saying: “I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!”
Medvedev served as the head of state when Putin had to step down to become prime minister due to a constitutional limit on the number of presidential terms one can serve – a limit that has since been lifted, guaranteeing the possibility that Putin can be president for life.
As the former prime minister and president of Russia, Medvedev was once among the most influential Russian officials, but he has become an increasingly fringe figure in recent years, known mostly for social media outpourings of hate and propaganda.
Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg called Medvedev’s comments “reckless.”
“Stoking fears of WW III is an unfortunate, reckless comment,” he said on X, adding that the United States is still waiting for Russia’s ceasefire proposal.