Trump Criticizes Putin, Calls Ukraine War ‘Disappointment’ After Once Claiming It Would Be ‘Easy to End’

Despite declar­ing that Vladimir Putin had “let him down,” Don­ald Trump insist­ed that the war in Ukraine would nev­er have start­ed if he had been in the White House in 2022.

Dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence with UK Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer at Che­quers, Trump expressed frus­tra­tion with the Russ­ian leader, crit­i­ciz­ing him for fail­ing to take mean­ing­ful steps to end the ongo­ing con­flict. The for­mer pres­i­dent said he had once believed the war would be the “eas­i­est to solve” because of his per­son­al rela­tion­ship with Putin, but admit­ted that the real­i­ty had proven far more com­pli­cat­ed.

Trump went on to argue that his return to office would dra­mat­i­cal­ly change the sit­u­a­tion, claim­ing he could bring both Rus­sia and Ukraine to the nego­ti­at­ing table with­in weeks. He also empha­sized that the war had become a glob­al cri­sis, strain­ing NATO, hurt­ing economies, and threat­en­ing long-term sta­bil­i­ty in Europe.

Trump believed ties to Putin would help resolve Ukraine war

Don­ald Trump reflect­ed on a recent sum­mit in Alas­ka with the Russ­ian leader, where he had urged him to hold talks with Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­sky.

The 79-year-old com­man­der-in-chief said his pro­pos­als were ignored, despite his belief that his rela­tion­ship with Putin could bring about an end to the con­flict.

“I thought this war would be one of the eas­i­est to solve because of my rela­tion­ship with Putin. But he has real­ly let me down,” Trump told reporters.

“I mean, frankly, Russ­ian sol­diers are being killed at a high­er rate than the Ukrain­ian sol­diers. But, yeah, he’s let me down,” he added.

Trump insists Ukraine war would not have happened under his presidency

Don­ald Trump point­ed to his own term in office as evi­dence that the con­flict would not have occurred.

“If I were pres­i­dent, it would have nev­er hap­pened, and it didn’t hap­pen for four years. Peo­ple, most peo­ple, agree. It didn’t hap­pen, nor was it close to hap­pen­ing,” he said.

“I spoke to Pres­i­dent Putin about Ukraine, it was the apple of his eye. I’ve said that many times, it was, but he would have nev­er done what he did, except that he didn’t respect the lead­er­ship of the US,” Trump not­ed

The MAGA leader also claimed that the war “doesn’t affect the Unit­ed States” direct­ly, while acknowl­edg­ing the toll of casu­al­ties. “Of course, you are a lot clos­er to the scene than we are. We have a whole ocean sep­a­rat­ing us,” he told Starmer.

“But I will say this. It’s mil­lions of peo­ple have died in that war. Mil­lions of souls. And they’re not Amer­i­can sol­diers, most­ly sol­diers. As you know, the sol­diers are being killed at lev­els nobody’s seen since the Sec­ond World War, but they’re being, they’re being killed. And I feel I have an oblig­a­tion to get it set­tled for that rea­son,” Trump fur­ther said to Starmer.

Trump says Putin would drop out of war when oil prices fall

Don­ald Trump sug­gest­ed that Vladimir Putin could be pres­sured into end­ing the war if oil prices dropped, while urg­ing Euro­pean nations to stop import­ing Russ­ian ener­gy.

Putin would drop out of the war if the price of oil decreased,” the POTUS said. “If the oil prices come down, then Rus­sia will set­tle.”

The pres­i­dent added that Putin launched the war in Feb­ru­ary 2022 because “he didn’t respect the lead­er­ship of the Unit­ed States” under then-Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

Trump said last week that he was pre­pared to pur­sue sanc­tions against Moscow, but only if NATO allies end­ed what he called “shock­ing” pur­chas­es of Russ­ian oil.