Former U.S. president Donald Trump described Ukraine in bleak and mournful terms Wednesday, referring to its people as “dead” and the country itself as “demolished,” and further raising questions about how much the former president would be willing if elected again to concede in a negotiation over the country’s future.
Trump argued Ukraine should have made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the months before Russia’s February 2022 attack, declaring that even “the worst deal would’ve been better than what we have now.”
Trump, who has long been critical of U.S. aid to Ukraine, frequently claims that Russia never would have invaded if he was president and that he would put an end to the war if he returned to the White House. But rarely has he discussed the conflict in such detail.
His remarks, at a North Carolina event billed as an economic speech, come on the heels of a debate this month in which he pointedly refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. On Tuesday, Trump touted the prowess of Russia and its predecessor Soviet Union, saying that wars are “what they do.”
The Republican former president, notoriously attuned to slights, began his denunciation of Ukraine by alluding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent criticism of Trump and running mate JD Vance.
Zelenskyy, who is visiting the U.S. this week to attend the UN General Assembly, told The New Yorker that Vance was “too radical” for proposing that Ukraine surrender territories under Russian control and that Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”
Said Trump, “It’s something we have to have a quick discussion about because the president of Ukraine is in our country and he’s making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me.”
Trump painted Ukraine as a country in ruins outside its capital, Kyiv, short on soldiers and losing population to war deaths and neighboring countries. He questioned whether the country has any bargaining chips left to negotiate an end to the war.
“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said. “If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”
“What deal can we make? It’s demolished,” he added. “The people are dead. The country is in rubble.”
Zelenskyy is pitching the White House on what he calls a victory plan for the war, expected to include an ask to use long-range Western weapons to strike Russian targets.
While Ukraine outperformed many expectations that it would fall quickly to Russia, outnumbered Ukrainian forces face grinding battles against one of the world’s most powerful armies in the country’s east. A deal with Russia would almost certainly be unfavorable for Ukraine, which has lost a fifth of its territory and tens of thousands of lives in the conflict.
Trump laid blame for the conflict on U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival in November. He said Biden “egged it all on” by pledging to help Ukraine defend itself rather than pushing it to cede territory to Russia.
“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said.
Notably, Trump did not attack Putin’s reasoning for launching the invasion, only suggesting Putin would not have started the war had Trump been in office. He did say of Putin, “He’s no angel.”
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