President Donald Trump suggested that Ukraine should have opted not to fight back against Russia’s invasion.
In a Fox News interview that aired Thursday, Trump told Sean Hannity that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to fight when Russia invaded in 2022 was a mistake.
Trump, who met Zelensky in Paris in December, conceded that Russian president Vladimir Putin “shouldn’t have done it,” but criticized his Ukrainian counterpart and said: “Zelensky... shouldn’t have allowed this to happen either. He’s no angel.”
“Zelensky was fighting a much bigger entity, much bigger, much more powerful,” Trump told Hannity. “He shouldn’t have done that, because we could have made a deal.” Trump has long touted a mutually beneficial deal and even boasted that he would end the conflict within hours of taking back the Oval Office.
“I could have made that deal so easily, and Zelensky decided that ‘I want to fight,’” Trump said. Trump’s first term ended before Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
He then nodded to the support that the Biden administration offered to Kyiv in the form of funds and military equipment. “We started pouring equipment... and they (Ukraine) had the bravery to use the equipment, but in the end, it’s a war that has to be settled,” Trump said.
Trump also claimed that Russia had lost around 850,000 soldiers while Ukraine lost 700,000 over the course of the conflict. In December, Zelensky publicly claimed that Ukraine had suffered 43,000 killed and 370,000 wounded, while Moscow does not reveal its losses.
Trump went on to threaten Putin with “massive tariffs and massive taxes, and... big sanctions” if the conflict isn’t brought to an end. He added that he “doesn’t want to do it” because he “loves” Russia.
When pressed by Hannity as to whether he had spoken to Putin, Trump responded: “I don’t want to say.”
The Kremlin, meanwhile, was seemingly unmoved by Trump’s menaces.
“We do not see any particular new elements here,” Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters after the Fox interview.
The war continues to rage despite Trump’s rhetoric. Ukraine on Friday claimed to have hit an oil refinery in the Russian city of Ryazan overnight, reportedly part of a large attack on the country involving over 100 drones. Unverified social media footage appeared to show the refinery, around 112 miles southeast of Moscow, engulfed by flames.
