(CN) — Amid collapsing peace talks over the Ukraine war, new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to put more pressure on Russia during his first visit to the White House.
Merz’s trip to Washington came as the Ukraine-Russia war entered a new phase, with peace talks faltering and both sides escalating—Ukraine targeting Russia’s nuclear bombers and Moscow launching a major summer offensive to seize more territory.
“We both agree on this war and how terrible this war is, and we are both looking for ways to stop it very soon,” Merz said during an Oval Office news conference.
The two leaders were friendly with each other, and Trump did not ambush the German chancellor with criticism, as was feared based on previous visits by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Merz said Trump was “the key person in the world who can really [stop it] by putting pressure on Russia.”
Trump offered few details about his next move but warned Putin not to get “out of line,” likening the Russia-Ukraine conflict to a playground fight that can’t be easily stopped.
“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” Trump said, speaking to Merz and reporters in the Oval Office.
“They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try to pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
Trump also warned Putin against striking too hard. “If I see Russia’s out of line, you’ll see how tough …They like to say I am friends with Russia, I am not friends with anybody, I am friends with you,” Trump said, gesturing to Merz.
On Sunday, Ukraine launched drone strikes on Russia’s nuclear bomber fleet and allegedly blew up a bridge that collapsed in front of a passenger train, killing seven and injuring over 120. It also detonated explosives under a bridge to Crimea, though the structure appeared largely intact.
In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Trump on Wednesday, warning that Russia would retaliate for the drone attacks, which destroyed or damaged several long-range bombers used both in nuclear defense and missile strikes against Ukraine. The next day, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv issued an urgent air raid alert.
The drone strikes on four Russian airfields—including sites in Siberia and the Arctic Circle—were widely hailed by Kyiv, Western officials, and military experts as a major success, demonstrating Ukraine’s ability to deal serious blows deep inside Russia. Zelenskyy said the operation would not have been carried out if Russia had agreed to Trump’s push for a 30-day ceasefire.
However, White House officials, including Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, warned that the drone attack carried risks of escalation. The U.S. says it was not involved in bombing the warplanes.
Russia did not immediately accuse the West of complicity, but on Thursday, the Russian ambassador in Britain said Ukraine must have been helped. It is known that Western intelligence agencies work closely with Ukraine.
Andrei Kelin told Sky News television that such an attack involves “provision of very high technology, so-called geospaced data, which can only be done by those who have it in possession. And this is London and Washington.”
He said the U.S. was likely not involved, but that Britain likely was.
“We perfectly know how much London is involved, how deeply British forces are involved in working together with Ukraine,” he said.
He said Ukraine’s actions “are bringing the conflict to a different level of escalation,” and he warned of “World War III.”
“That’s the very worst case scenario that we can imagine,” he said.
Kellogg, too, was concerned about the direction of the war following the attack on Russia’s nuclear bomber fleet.
“I’m telling you the risk levels are going way up,” Kellogg said during an interview on Fox News. “When you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side’s going to do.”
In theory, negotiations remain on the table.
On Monday, Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul for a new round of talks and exchanged a memorandum outlining their demands — but prospects for an agreement are dim, with both sides effectively calling for their adversary to surrender.
Since Monday, Putin and Zelenskyy have made remarks indicating they have no reason to continue negotiations despite Trump’s insistence on finding a diplomatic solution.
In a televised meeting with government officials Wednesday, Putin accused Kyiv of being behind explosions that caused a bridge to collapse Saturday night in front of a passenger train heading to Moscow. Putin charged that the Zelenskyy government was “gradually turning into a terrorist organization.”
“What is there to talk about? Who conducts negotiations with those who rely on terror, with terrorists?” Putin said, as reported by the Kremlin.
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy called Russia’s list of demands an “ultimatum” that, in his view, showed Russia was not interested in peace talks. Putin accused Ukraine of destroying the prospects for diplomacy following the attacks inside Russia.
“This is not a memorandum of understanding. A memorandum implies two sides, not one side simply demanding something. So, it can’t be called a memorandum. It’s an ultimatum from the Russian side to us,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy called it “artificial diplomacy” and urged Western powers to impose more sanctions on Russia.
The debate over sanctions centers on a proposal by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal to impose 500% tariffs on countries that import Russian crude oil and natural gas, such as China and India. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she backs the idea.
On the ground, Russian forces have made their most significant advances in months, striking Ukrainian cities and seizing parts of the Sumy region near the Russian border.
As the conflict intensifies, European powers are ramping up defense efforts. On Monday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced “war-fighting readiness” measures, including plans to build 12 attack submarines and invest billions in the military.
Seeking to position himself as the European Union’s chief supporter of Ukraine, Merz went to Washington in large part to convince Trump to take a harsher line against Russia.
Since winning elections in February, Merz, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats, has pushed for a massive rearmament plan with the goal of making the German military Europe’s “strongest,” and he told Ukraine it can use its long-range Western-supplied missiles to strike targets inside Russia.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.