President Donald Trump offered a rambling, convoluted excuse for why he failed to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept a 30-day ceasefire during a two-hour phone call Tuesday. Putin agreed not to target energy and infrastructure in the short term, but he refused to stop the killing outright. “You have a situation where you have a lot of guns pointing at each other, foolishly, because it would have never happened if I were president,” said Trump—who vowed to end the war within 24 hours if re-elected in November—during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. He then continued, “That is not a war that was supposed to happen. And it did happen, so that’s where we are. And right now, you have a lot of guns pointing at each other, and a ceasefire without going a little bit further would have been tough. Russia has the advantage, as you know, they have encircled about 2,500 soldiers. They’re nicely encircled, and that’s not good, and we want to get it over with.” Hours after Putin told Trump he would halt the attacks, Russia bombed an energy plant in Ukraine, according to The Telegraph.
