US President Donald Trump suggested that Kyiv was to blame for a war that began only after Russia invaded that country, Euronews reported on Wednesday, Feb. 19.
Commenting on Ukraine’s possible disappointment over its absence from negotiations between the US and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia, he stated that, in reality, he was disappointed by the prolonged war.
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Journalists in Mar-a-Lago asked Trump what he thought about the fact that Ukraine, which has been fighting against Russia for three years, might feel betrayed or disappointed due to its exclusion from the talks.
Trump stated, “I’m very disappointed. I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat [at the talks], well, they had a seat for three years and a long time before that.”
He added, “This could have been settled very easily,” and that “a half-baked negotiator could have settled this.”
Speaking to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump said, “Today I heard, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years ago. You should have never started it.”
He repeatedly said that Ukraine’s leaders should never have allowed the conflict to begin, implying that Kyiv should have been willing to make concessions to Russia before it sent troops into Ukraine in 2022.
“A half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives,” Trump said.
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Trump stated that he believed he had a “good chance” to end Russia’s war against Ukraine but strongly rejected suggestions that the US and Russia were negotiating an end to the fighting without Ukraine’s involvement.
Neither Ukraine nor European nations were invited to Tuesday’s talks in Riyadh. US media was stunned at Trump’s comments that Ukraine had somehow started a war when Moscow in fact annexed Crimea and then its forces launched a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
The meeting, organized after Trump’s phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, marks the first high-level meeting between US and Russian officials since the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Both sides were expected to lay the groundwork in preparation for future peace talks in Riyadh.
Both the White House and the Kremlin ruled out Ukrainian and European participation at this initial stage, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky having said he would not accept the results of any negotiation that excluded Kyiv.
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