00:00President Trump has indicated he'll impose a deadline for Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.
00:06Mr. Trump said that if the Russian leader was still stringing him along in two weeks, he would respond differently.
00:13Mr. Trump has so far stopped short of imposing sanctions, but has warned that his stance could change.
00:19While Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he'd spoken to his American counterpart,
00:24the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, about concrete proposals to be presented at a new round of direct talks with Ukraine next week in Istanbul.
00:33On Wednesday, Germany and Ukraine said that they would work together to build long-range missiles.
00:38Appearing alongside Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin, the new German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz promised what he called a new form of military-industrial cooperation.
00:48So, will a deadline make an impact in bringing an end to the conflict?
00:51I put that question to Vitaly Shevchenko, BBC Monitoring's Russia editor and the host of UkraineCast.
00:59If it's a deadline, it's not particularly a hard deadline because they've said it before.
01:05Donald Trump's own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on the 4th of April, I think, he said,
01:12we'll find out soon enough, in a matter of weeks, whether Russia is serious about peace.
01:19And it looks like they still don't know, almost eight weeks later.
01:24And there's nothing in Russia's actions or rhetoric that would suggest that they are even considering stopping attacks on Ukraine.
01:34In fact, yesterday, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, he voiced another demand for Ukraine to meet.
01:44He said Russia wants Ukraine to amend its legislation.
01:48So, this list of demands, it's growing.
01:51Russia's still saying that it intends to capture more territory in Ukraine, at least the four regions that it partly controls.
01:59It still wants to discuss what it calls the root causes of the crisis.
02:05So, nothing's changed there.
02:06And also, let's not forget, Martine, that on the 12th of May, Russia was supposed to cease fire,
02:13according to demands voiced by Ukraine's allies from the Coalition of the Willing.
02:18So, all these deadlines, they came and went and nothing happened.
02:22So, hardly an incentive for Vladimir Putin to cease fire.
02:26So, how much more likely is it that Volodymyr Zelensky will decide to lean more on his European allies than the United States?
02:37Well, lean is what he can try to do.
02:42He's been gently and politely calling on the United States to exert more pressure on Russia.
02:50And following last weekend's devastating aerial attacks on Ukraine, record-breaking attacks,
02:58he said it's the silence of America and other countries that enables those attacks.
03:04And that statement triggered an outburst from Donald Trump, who said,
03:10I don't like anything that's coming out of Volodymyr Zelensky's mouth.
03:14That's a quote.
03:16So, the Ukrainian president has been trying to get Ukraine's allies to take some action,
03:25but so far, nothing they've taken has been able to stop the Russians.
03:31In fact, this morning, I've been looking at reports of more people killed in Ukraine in aerial attacks.
03:37One 68-year-old man in Sumi and five glide bombs dropped in a village in Zaporizh region.
03:44So, those attacks just continue.
03:48BBC Monitoring's Russia editor Vitaly Shevchenko is speaking to us earlier.
03:52Well, in the last few minutes, a few lines have dropped from the Kremlin's morning press briefing.
03:59And Dmitry Preskov has been speaking again about this matter.
04:03He says there are currently no plans for Vladimir Putin to speak to Donald Trump.
04:08He said, we propose talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on the 2nd of June.
04:14And so far, there's been no answer from Kiev.
04:17And he went on to say the main thing right now is to continue the direct Russia-Ukraine talks.
04:22Of course, some of those happened in Istanbul and very little emerged from them.
04:27But there was that prisoner exchange, of course.
04:30So, let's see.
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