'Putin's tapping me along' says Trump after missile strikes

DONALD Trump has said he fears that Russia has been playing him along despite Vladimir Putin’s claims to want peace.

- By Giles Sheldrick Chief Reporter

The US president appeared to have changed tack following face-to-face talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky at Pope Francis's funeral on Saturday.

In a social media post, Mr Trump said a Russian strike on Ukraine's capital last week “makes me think that maybe [Putin] doesn’t want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘banking’ or ‘secondary sanctions?”

Pounding

He was referring to Thursday's devastating missile attack on Kyiv that killed 12 and was the heaviest pounding of the city in a year.