Trump Blames Ukraine for Starting War

President Trump on Tuesday appeared to blame Ukraine for starting its war with Russia, despite the fact that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Responding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's anger that Ukraine was not invited to Tuesday's US-Russia talks, and his assertion that Ukraine won't agree to any peace deal it wasn't a part of negotiating, Trump said, per CNN:

• "I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it's going well. But today I heard, 'Oh well, we weren't invited.' Well, you been there for three years. You should've ended it after three years. You should've never started it. You could've made a deal."

Trump also falsely claimed Zelensky has just a 4% approval rating, Axios reports. As for the supposed "deal" Ukraine could have made, Trump said, per the BBC, that it "would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land—and no people would have (been) killed, and no city would have been demolished." He said Russia wants "to stop the savage barbarianism." As for whether Ukraine is an equal member of peace negotiations, he wouldn't answer the question directly, the Hill reports, but only said, "Their people are being killed, and I think they have to make peace. I said that was not a good war to go into, and I think they have to make peace. That's what I think." (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)