Trump says Putin is 'playing with fire' as Russia makes gains in Ukraine

By Steve Holland, Tom Balmforth and Yuliia Dysa

WASHINGTON/KYIV (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Vladimir Putin was "playing with fire" by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv as Russian forces made gains in Ukraine's northeast.

With his frustration increasing, Trump has lashed out at the Russian president as Moscow has hit Ukraine with some of the three-year-old war's deadliest drone and missile attacks while not moving forward on ceasefire efforts.

"What Vladimir Putin doesn't realize is that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened in Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He's playing with fire," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.

The president, who prides himself on having friendly relations with Putin, did not elaborate.

Trump in a post on Sunday said Putin had "gone absolutely CRAZY" by unleashing a massive aerial attack on Ukraine.

Putin said after a two-hour call with Trump last week that Russia was ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum about a future peace accord.

The Russian leader said part of this work would be defining a possible ceasefire, including its timeframe. Ukraine, its European allies and the U.S. have all urged Putin to accept an immediate, unconditional ceasefire lasting at least 30 days.

The Kremlin has said it could not estimate how long drafting the memorandum would take, and it said on Tuesday it was still working on it. Kyiv and European governments have accused Moscow of stalling while it advances on the battlefield.

FOUR SUMY VILLAGES CAPTURED

Trump's social media blast on Tuesday came as Kyiv suffered another battlefield setback with Russian forces capturing four villages in Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region.

Trump has so far held off on major new sanctions against Russia, though U.S. officials say a package of sanctions has been prepared should he decide to do so. Trump is also under pressure from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to increase military assistance to Ukraine.

The Russian advances follow some of the biggest drone and missile attacks on Ukraine since Russia began the full-scale war in early 2022, although the level dropped markedly overnight from Monday to Tuesday.

Ukraine has also fired dozens of long-range drones into Russia in recent days, forcing some Moscow airports to close temporarily.

Sumy Governor Oleh Hryhorov wrote on Facebook that the villages of Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka had been occupied by Russia, although residents had long been evacuated.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Monday it had taken the nearby village of Bilovody, implying a further advance in the more than three-year war.

Ukrainian officials have said for weeks that Russian troops are trying to make inroads into Sumy region, the main city of which lies less than 30 km (19 miles) from the border.

Russian forces, attacking in small groups on motorcycles and supported by drones, have been widening the area where they have been carrying out assaults, a spokesperson for Ukraine's border guard service said.

Ukrainian forces used Sumy region as a launch pad to seize a chunk of Russia's neighbouring Kursk region last year before being largely driven out by April. The area has been pounded for months by Russian guided bomb attacks and other strikes.

"The enemy is continuing attempts to advance with the aim of setting up a so-called 'buffer zone'," Hryhorov wrote on Facebook.

During a trip to the Kursk region in March, Putin repeated a call for his military to consider establishing a "buffer zone" along Russia's border.

NEW OFFENSIVES

Though Russia's offensive activity is concentrated in the eastern Donetsk region, Moscow's inroads into northeastern Ukraine show how it is stretching Kyiv's forces on multiple fronts.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly warned that Russia is preparing new offensives against Sumy as well as the northeastern Kharkiv and southeastern Zaporizhzhia regions.

"There is much evidence that they are preparing new offensive operations. Russia is counting on further war," he said on Monday, without elaborating.

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Yuliia Dysa, Ron Popeski, Oleksandr Kozhukhar and Steve Holland; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Alison Williams and Cynthia Osterman)