Trump threatens tough sanctions on Russia for 'pounding' Ukraine

A week after the tense meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, the U.S. president is considering applying "large scale" sanctions on Russia for "pounding" Ukraine and preventing peace.

Trump used his platform, Truth Social, to make his intentions public.

"Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely 'pounding' Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and a FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED," Trump said.

"To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late," the president added.

Until now, Trump had been criticized for not imposing sanctions against Russia. He was even accused of being aligned with Vladimir Putin's government in the conflict.

The statement comes hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted in an interview that the conflict in Ukraine is "a proxy war between nuclear powers: the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia," something the Kremlin agreed with.

"We can and want to agree with it, and we do. That's the way things are. We have said it repeatedly. We have said that this is actually a conflict between Russia and the collective West. And the main country of the collective West is the United States of America," said Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman.

Meanwhile, the 27 member countries of the European Union (E.U.), seen as Ukraine's main supporters, approved a plan to rearm the alliance, but failed to reach consensus on accelerating military aid to Ukraine.