President Donald Trump is meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Washington, D.C., after announcing that the U.S. will be giving patriot missiles to Ukraine to help in its war against Russia.
The president has been critical of Putin in recent days, a quick departure from the manner in which he'd talk about his Russian counterpart earlier this year.
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"I am very disappointed with [Russian] President Putin and I thought that he was somebody that meant what he said," President Trump told reporters on Sunday. "He'll talk so beautifully and then he'll bomb people at night. We don't like that."
The conflict in Eastern Europe has intensified in recent weeks. The United Nations reports that June saw the worst casualties in Ukraine in nearly three years.
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On Capitol Hill this week, lawmakers continue to wait and see if President Trump will endorse a bipartisan plan to sanction Russia. One idea includes using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine buy additional military equipment.
Another idea on Capitol Hill is to penalize countries that are buying Russian energy. However, it's a slippery slope because it could potentially mean harming some U.S. allies that rely on that energy.
