The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump shelved in recent weeks an interagency working group it had set up to formulate strategies for pressuring Russia into speeding up peace talks with Ukraine, according to three U.S. officials.
The effort, which was established earlier in the spring, lost steam in May as it became increasingly clear to participants that Trump was not interested in adopting a more confrontational stance toward Moscow, said the officials.
Despite pledging during his campaign to end the war in Ukraine on the first day of his presidency, Trump in recent months has grown increasingly frustrated that his push has yielded no breakthroughs. He has begun saying that the United States may abandon its efforts to broker peace altogether.
