Trump’s comments come shortly after he threatened to pull U.S. support from the peace process altogether if either Russia or Ukraine caused negotiations to stall.

“Hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Both will then start to do big business with the United States of America, which is thriving, and make a fortune.”

Trump’s post was published on Easter Sunday, amid what was supposed to be a temporary ceasefire in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 19 declared an “Easter truce,” promising to halt all combat operations until midnight on April 21.

Ukraine and the U.S. both called on Putin to extend the truce beyond Easter and impose a complete 30-day ceasefire. According to Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, Putin gave no such order.

President Volodymyr Zelensky had proposed a 30-day ban on long-range missile and drone strikes against civilian infrastructure, noting that Russia had managed to halt aerial attacks against Ukraine on Easter.

Some European leaders expressed skepticism at Putin’s Easter truce.

Trump had told reporters that he was ready to “take a pass” on negotiating a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

“If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re just going to take a pass. But hopefully we won’t have to do that,” he said.

Earlier that day, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated Washington would abandon its negotiation efforts in the coming days if there was no progress on an agreement.

The comments represent an abrupt about-face for the Trump administration, which has made a Ukraine-Russia peace deal a priority since the Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump spent the months leading up to his election promising to end the war in 24 hours and has repeatedly boasted about his ability to secure a deal.

Business interests have played a key role in Trump’s approach to both Ukraine and Russia.

Since Trump took office, Washington has taken steps to normalize relations with Moscow, emphasizing strengthened economic ties. Following a phone call between Trump and Putin on March 18, the Kremlin announced the leaders were interested in developing “mutually beneficial cooperation” in a number of sectors. The White House later touted the potential for “enormous economic deals” between the two countries.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has stated that “economic partnerships” with the U.S. could serve as an incentive for Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

The Trump administration is also pursuing a minerals deal with Kyiv that would give the U.S. broad control over revenues from Ukraine’s natural resources — something Washington claims it deserves in return for military aid provided to Kyiv. The U.S. maintains the agreement would help protect Ukraine against Russian aggression, though it includes no security guarantees.

Putin, who ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, ordered Russian forces to “stop all military activity” along the front line in the three-year-old war until midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT) on Sunday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was pretending to observe the Easter ceasefire, but had in fact continued hundreds of artillery attacks on Saturday night, with more assaults on Sunday.

Zelensky wrote on the X social media platform that Russia had launched 26 assaults from midnight until midday local time (0900 GMT).

“Either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favourable PR coverage,” Zelensky’s post added.

Earlier he stated the Russian army “is trying to create a general impression of a ceasefire”, while continuing to inflict losses on Ukraine’s front line.

Russia’s Defence Ministry announced that Ukraine had broken the ceasefire more than 1,000 times, inflicting damage to infrastructure and causing some civilian deaths.

The ministry said Ukrainian forces had shot at Russian positions 444 times while it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks, including attacks on Crimea and on the Russian border areas of Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions.

“As a result, there are deaths and injuries among the civilian population, as well as damage to civilian facilities,” the ministry added.

Ukraine’s military noted earlier on Sunday that activity on the front line had decreased. Some Russian military bloggers also stated military activity along the frontline has substantially decreased.

The apparent failure to observe even an Easter ceasefire shows just how hard it will be for U.S. President Donald Trump to achieve his aim of clinching a lasting deal to end what he calls the “bloodbath” of the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. will walk away from efforts to broker a peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress soon, Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, stated on Friday.

Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly warned of the escalation risk of the war – which his administration now casts as a proxy conflict between the U.S. and Russia, echoing Moscow’s stance.

Last month, after Ukraine accepted Trump’s proposal for a 30-day truce, Putin said crucial issues of verification had not been sorted out. Both Moscow and Kyiv have agreed to a moratorium on attacks on energy targets and at sea, which each accuses the other of breaking.

Zelensky reiterated that Kyiv was willing to extend the ceasefire for 30 days but said that if Russia kept fighting on Sunday, so would Ukraine.
Putin told his top general, Valery Gerasimov, to be ready to respond “in full” if Kyiv broke the truce.

Russia controls just under one-fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, and the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Putin, when announcing the ceasefire before heading to an Orthodox Easter service, said the truce would show whether or not Ukraine was ready or able to implement peace. Putin thanked Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and leaders from the BRICS group of emerging economies for attempts to mediate.

The European Union reacted cautiously to Putin’s ceasefire declaration, saying Moscow could stop the war immediately if it wanted to.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated U.N. support “for meaningful efforts towards a just, lasting and comprehensive peace that fully upholds Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity”.

Easter falls on the same day this year for Orthodox and Western churches, and Zelensky urged Ukrainians not to give up hope that peace will one day return.

“We know what we are defending. We know what we are fighting for,” he stated in a social media video, wearing a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt and standing in front of Kyiv’s main church, Saint Sophia Cathedral.