President Trump and Russian officials are engaged in a war of words, a sign of escalating tensions between the two powers as Trump grows increasingly frustrated over the lack of progress toward a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Trump has posted in recent days on social media that Russian President Vladimir Putin had gone “absolutely CRAZY” and warned he was “playing with fire” with continued strikes on Ukrainian cities.

Moscow, meanwhile, has issued coy responses to Trump as it carries out deadly strikes against Kyiv, cautioning the U.S. president against “emotional overload” and warning that the only bad outcome would be “WWIII.”

Lawmakers in both parties have used the shift in tone to urge Trump to take a tougher stance through sanctions on Russia, while experts argued it was still unclear whether the president would match his stronger rhetoric with action.

“We’re going to find out whether he’s tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently. But it will take about a week and a half, two weeks,” Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked if he thought Putin wanted to end the war.

“They seem to want to do something, but until the document is signed, I can't tell you. Nobody can,” Trump added. “I can say this — that I'm very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed in the middle of what you would........

© The Hill