Trump disbands group focused on pressuring Russia— Reuters

This was reported by Reuters, citing three American officials.

It is noted that the interagency task force began work in the spring, but by May had already lost momentum, as Trump had increasingly expressed frustration that his efforts were yielding no breakthroughs. He began suggesting that the U.S. might abandon its efforts to mediate peace altogether. Officials noted that in light of this threat, the task force's mission seemed increasingly irrelevant.

“It (the task force – ed.) lost steam toward the end because the president wasn't there. Instead of doing more, maybe he wanted to do less,” one of them said.

According to the sources, the final blow to the task force came when most members of the White House National Security Council, including the entire team directly dealing with the war in Ukraine, were dismissed as part of a broad purge.

It remains unclear who exactly ordered the shutdown of this initiative, but officials suggested that the scale of the cuts at the National Security Council made it impossible for the task force to continue its work.

• On May 20, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that he was ready to withdraw the U.S. from negotiations between Ukraine and Russia if no progress was achieved.