Donald Trump says Ukraine ‘should have never started’ war
President Donald Trump suggested Ukraine “should have never started” the war in Ukraine.
WASHINGTON – Talk about a U-turn.
When Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Joe Biden rallied the world. The U.S. and its partners isolated Russia and poured tens of billions of dollars in arms, cash and loans into Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s battered country – even as Putin refused to yield.
“America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are,” Biden said from the White House.
That was then.
Now, on the anniversary of the Russian invasion, the Biden administration’s position of “nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine” has been tossed aside by President Donald Trump and his advisors. Trump has lashed out at Ukraine, blaming its leaders for Putin’s invasion and cutting Kyiv out of early negotiations with Russia – to the shock of America’s allies.
His taunting of Zelenskyy, who he called “dictator,” was rebuked by European leaders and peeved Ukraine-supporting lawmakers in the U.S.
“I’m just here to try and get peace,” Trump said this month. “I don’t care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed.”
Who started it?
The president’s team says he deserves credit for shifting the conversation to how the war ends after more than a year of grim stalemate on the battlefront. But his repetition of Russian talking points about who’s to blame for the war has put the the White House in an uncomfortable position.
Trump national security adviser Michael Waltz would not say whether Trump believes Putin or Zelenskyy is more responsible for the Russian invasion at a White House briefing Thursday. Waltz pointedly underscored Trump’s frustration with the Ukrainian president, who said Trump was living in a “disinformation” bubble informed by the aggressor’s narrative.
“There has been ongoing fighting on both sides. It is World War I-style trench warfare,” Waltz said. “Some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and – and insults to President Trump – were unacceptable,” he added.
In a floor speech later that day, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member on the Foreign Relations committee, said Ukraine still has bipartisan support.
“Vladimir Putin is responsible for this. He’s responsible for the bodies in Bucha and for thousands across Ukraine,” Shaheen said, recalling the 2022 massacre of hundreds of Ukrainian townspeople by Russia’s 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment. “And he’s got to be held accountable. We cannot let him get away with this.”
2,500 stolen children
The full civilian toll isn’t known. Ukraine does not release casualty figures and lacks access to Russian-occupied areas of the country – about 20% of its territory.
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 40,838 civilians had been killed or wounded in Ukraine as of December 2024, including 2,500 children. Kyiv estimates 20,000 Ukrainian kids have been forcibly taken to Russia – the International Criminal Court has charged Putin with approving their abductions – with only a fraction returned.
Zelenskyy said he is willing to step down to join NATO, blasts Trump
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said he would step down if it meant Ukraine could join NATO. He also blasted Trump’s mineral reserves proposal.
In addition to the Black Sea region of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, Moscow controls large swathes of Ukraine.
In a surprise move last year, Ukraine seized territory in the western region of Kursk. Russia said last week it’s retaken much of that territory and now controls 75% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of eastern Ukraine, in additon to almost all of the Luhansk region.
Trump sparks panic
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth alarmed U.S. allies earlier this month when he said in a speech that “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective” and that eventual NATO membership for Ukraine – a pillar of Kyiv’s security strategy – is not “a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
Trump said later Hegseth was “probably” right about NATO membership. “I’m backing Ukraine,” the president told reporters. “I’m approving, but I do want security for our money.”
The comments came after a call with Putin, in which Trump said they discussed the “great benefit that we will someday have in working together” and raised an in-person meeting in Saudi Arabia. The call was the first known conversation between a U.S. president and Putin since the war began. His team then traveled to Riyadh to meet with Russian officials, including foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who is under U.S. sanctions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio touted “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians, geopolitically on issues of common interest and, frankly, economically.”
The talks incensed Ukraine. Zelenskyy postponed a trip of his own to Saudi Arabia that was due to follow.
“We want no one to decide anything behind our backs,” he said. “No decision can be made without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine.”
Trump responded tersely. “You’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it. Three years. You should have never started it,” he said. “You could have made a deal.”
Relations sour between Trump and Zelenskyy
Trump’s complicated history with Zelenskyy dates back to an infamous 2019 phone call the leaders shared two months after the former comedian was sworn in as Ukraine’s president.
From the White House, Trump asked Zelenskyy to investigate Biden, then Trump’s top rival for the presidency, his son Hunter – who had served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company – and a discredited conspiracy theory involving a hack on the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election that U.S. prosecutors say was done by Russian agents.
The phone call led to Trump’s first impeachment trial. He was accused by House Democrats of withholding military aid to Ukraine and dangling a White House visit in front of Zelenskyy in a quid pro quo, a charge he denied.
Trump eventually provided Ukraine with weapons. He was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate in February 2020. Zelenskyy did not visit the White House until after Biden took office.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, leading to the protracted war.
Trump has repeatedly derided Zelenskyy in the years since, most recently calling him a “dictator” and demanding elections in Ukraine despite the ongoing invasion. Ukraine’s constitution bars elections while the country is under martial law.
Tensions flared last fall ahead of the U.S. election when Zelenskyy visited an ammunition plant in Pennsylvania, a major U.S. battleground state, and said Trump, who’d boasted he could end the war in a single day, didn’t know how to conclude the war.
Zelenskyy sought to bring the temperature down at a New York meeting immediately afterward. The leaders spoke by phone after the election and met in Paris in December alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. (Macron is due in Washington on Monday where, he said on social media, he will warn Trump against appearing weak to Putin.)
A tit-for-tat broke out anew after after Trump hit out at Zelenskyy for refusing a deal to provide the U.S. with access to its mineral resources in exchange for aid. The Ukrainian leader returned fire, saying Trump was buying into disinformation. Trump demanded $500 billion in Ukraine’s minerals as repayment for U.S. assistance, but Zelenskyy retorted that American aid hasn’t come close to that enormous figure.
In meeting with US, Russia said NATO must disavow promise to Ukraine
Russian officials said NATO must disavow a 2008 promise to allow Ukraine to enter the organization in order to end the war.
Former U.S. officials say the spat has hurt both leaders.
“Trump needs Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy needs Trump,” Charles Kupchan, a former senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council said recently on a call with reporters.
“This kind of mutual insult game only plays into the hands of Russia at a time when the Trump administration should be doing everything to increase Ukraine’s leverage, not undermine it,” he said.
Kupchan, who supports direct talks with the Russians, added: “I appreciate what Trump is trying to do. In practice, it is a big hot mess.”