In podcast interview, Trump blames Zelenskyy, not Putin, for Ukraine war

Former President Donald Trump blamed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine for Russia’s invasion of his country in a podcast interview released Thursday, inverting the facts of the largest military action in Europe since the Second World War.

The war began when President Vladimir Putin of Russia massed troops on the border and then invaded Ukraine, sending in troops and launching airstrikes on Feb. 24, 2022. Putin had long hoped to assert more control over the country, having already seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backed pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s east in a proxy war.

Trump, in a rambling, muddled answer on a conservative podcast, was criticizing President Joe Biden’s leadership when he abruptly brought up his skepticism over the administration’s continued military aid to Ukraine.

“I think Zelenskyy is one of the greatest salesmen I’ve ever seen,” Trump said, repeating a statement he has made frequently. “Every time he comes in, we give him $100 billion. Who else got that kind of money in history? There’s never been. And that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him, because I feel very badly for those people. But he should never have let that war start. That war is a loser.”

Trump has suggested before that blame for the widespread destruction caused by the Russian invasion rests with the Ukrainian president. Zelenskyy, he has said, should have cut a deal with Putin to avoid the invasion.

“Those cities are gone, they’re gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal,” Trump said at a rally last month in Mint Hill, North Carolina.

On the podcast, after lamenting the devastation in Ukraine, Trump pointed the finger at Biden. Speaking with the podcast’s host, Patrick Bet-David, a conservative finance entrepreneur, Trump denigrated Biden’s intelligence by claiming that with a smarter president, the war “would have been easy to settle.”

Asked about the comments, the Trump campaign declined to clarify.

Trump’s remarks pointed to the continued concern by Democrats and American allies over how Trump might approach the conflict if he is elected in November. When Trump, in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last month, was pressed on the question of whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war, he did not say.

Trump has expressed admiration for Putin and speaks often about their closeness. This week, he twice dodged questions about a report that he had spoken to Putin after his presidency had ended but said that it would have been a “smart thing” if he had done so.

Though their ties have been under scrutiny since U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Putin ordered an election interference effort to help Trump in his 2016 campaign, Trump’s frequent criticism of military and financial aid to Ukraine has raised new concerns.

Trump often insists that his relationship with Putin will allow him to end the war in Ukraine swiftly. But he has not addressed whether he believes that Ukraine will have to cede territory to Russia to do so.

Trump and Zelenskyy met last month at Trump Tower in Manhattan, their first meeting in five years. There, Trump told reporters that he wanted to end the war with “a fair deal for both sides.”

When the two made a joint appearance on Fox News, Zelenskyy made it clear that it was Putin who had started the war.

“This war shouldn’t be started, and I think that the problem that Putin killed so many people and, of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war,” Zelenskyy said. “He is on our territory, that’s the most important to understand. He is on our territory, and how to stop the war to pressure him as we can. As we can — we have to do it.”