US President Donald Trump, after talks between the Russian and American delegations in Riyadh, criticized Ukraine and expressed disappointment with Kyiv's reaction, blaming it for starting the war.
According to Trump, Russia is not responsible for the war, declaring that Ukrainian leaders are to blame because they refused to surrender territory, and therefore, he believes, they do not deserve a place at the peace negotiation table, which he just started with Putin. «Now in Ukraine, there is leadership that allowed a war to break out that shouldn't have been,» he said, adding that Ukraine could have «made a deal.» Trump, who began negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine, accused Zelensky of inaction, stating that there were three years for Ukrainians to take their place at the negotiation table.
He reiterated his claim that the invasion would not have happened if he had been president, ignoring the fact that Russian-backed forces waged war inside Ukraine throughout all four years of his first term. «I could have made a deal for Ukraine, resulting in them getting almost all the land,» he said, not explaining why he did not attempt to negotiate peace when he was president.
Speaking at his estate in Florida, he blamed Ukraine for everything, not uttering a word of reproach towards Putin, who invaded Ukraine in 2014 and waged a hybrid war against it throughout all four years of Trump's first term, then launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.
At the same time, Trump voiced numerous false claims. In particular, he stated that since the beginning of the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with three times more aid than Europe. In fact, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe allocated $138 billion compared to $119 billion from the US.
He also claimed that Zelensky's approval rating is 4%. Meanwhile, a public opinion poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in December showed that 52% of Ukrainians trust Zelensky. In this case, the US president repeated the Russian thesis that new elections should be held in Ukraine for it to sit at the negotiation table. «Yes, I would say that when they want a place at the negotiation table, one could say that the people should — shouldn't the people of Ukraine say, for example, that we haven't had elections for a long time?» he said, omitting the issue of elections in Russia, where any voting is controlled by the Kremlin and rigged to achieve the desired result.
In his social network Truth, Trump once again repeated that the United States spent $200 billion more on Ukraine than Europe, and Europe's money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back. «A dictator without elections, Zelensky must act quickly, or he will have no country left. Meanwhile, we are successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia, which, admittedly, only Trump and the Trump administration can do. Biden never tried, Europe couldn't achieve peace... I love Ukraine, but Zelensky has done a terrible job, his country is destroyed, and millions of people have died unnecessarily — And it continues...» Trump wrote, voicing clichés of Russian propaganda.
As The New York Times writes, Trump is in the process of executing one of the most impressive shifts in American foreign policy in several generations, a 180-degree turn that will force friends and foes to radically realign. He makes it clear that the United States has stopped supporting the isolation of Putin for his unprovoked aggression against a weaker neighbor and the killing of hundreds of thousands of people. «This is a disgraceful reversal of 80 years of American foreign policy,» says Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, who was a national security advisor under President George W. Bush. — «Every American president for the last 80 years would have opposed President Trump's statement.»
Just days after Vice President JD Vance criticized European allies, stating that the «internal threat» is more concerning than Russia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and spoke of the «incredible opportunities that exist for partnership with the Russians» if they could just get rid of the war in Ukraine.
Trump's statements after the talks in Saudi Arabia were not prepared and came in response to reporters' questions. As noted by NYT, they reflect his vision of the situation and indicate the direction of developments in the coming months. «Some of the most disgraceful comments made by a president in my lifetime,» wrote Ian Bond, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform in London. — «Trump sides with the aggressor, blaming the victim. The Kremlin must be jumping for joy.»
Photo: AP, Reuters, RBC-Ukraine