President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at Lehigh Valley International Airport, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
"Well, there'll be sanctions, but they seem to be pretty good at avoiding sanctions. You know, they're wily characters, and they're pretty good at avoiding sanctions," Trump told reporters in front of Marine One. "So we'll see what happens."
Asked about Witkoff’s message to Moscow and if there’s anything the Russians can do to avoid sanctions, Trump said Sunday, "Yeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed."
"A tremendous number of Russian soldiers have been killed. And likewise Ukraine, a lower number, but still thousands and thousands of people. And now we're adding towns where they're being hit by missiles. So it's a lot of people being killed in that ridiculous war," Trump said. "We stopped a lot of countries from war, India and Pakistan, we stopped a lot of countries. And we're going to get that one stopped too. Somehow. We're going to get that one stopped. That's a really horrible war."
"This should be the easiest to stop, and it’s not," Trump added.
Before ordering the deployment of nuclear submarines last week, Trump had warned Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, to "watch his words." Medvedev had complained that Trump had shortened the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire deadline from 50 days to just 10 to 12 days, saying that the "ultimatum" was threat toward war "not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country."
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at Lehigh Valley International Airport, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Zhang criticized ongoing drills that the U.S. Air Force is conducting with Japan and other partners in the western Pacific. Resolute Force Pacific is the largest contingency-response exercise ever conducted by the Air Force in the region, according to the U.S. military. The U.S. Air Force has said their exercise will train its forces to maintain readiness and execute missions under stress to demonstrate their ability to defend the United States and partner nations in the Pacific.
"The U.S. has been blindly flexing muscles in the Asia-Pacific region and attempting to use military drills as a pretext to gang up, intimidate and pressure other countries, and undermine peace and stability in the region," Zhang told reporters.
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Japan's Defense Ministry said in an annual report earlier this month that China’s growing military cooperation with Russia poses serious security concerns.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on X: @danimwallace.
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