Trump Says Putin Has Power to Take Ukraine ‘If He Wants,’ Zelensky ‘Has No Cards’

US President Donald Trump once again struck out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, claiming that Zelensky has no leverage and therefore no need to participate in peace negotiations to end Russia’s invasion and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had the power to take all of Ukraine, “if he wanted.”

“I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards,” Trump said during an interview on Fox News Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Show. “He has no cards.” 

Trump said he was “sick of” the war and frustrated that Zelensky had not ended it already. “You just get sick of it. And I’ve had it,” Trump said. “He’s been at a meeting for three years, and nothing got done. So, I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you.” 

The twice impeached American president continued to criticize Ukraine’s war-time leader. “He makes it very hard to make deals. But look what’s happened to his country, it’s been demolished,” he falsely claimed.

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Realpolitik and Betrayal

Everyone wants the war to stop so peace can return. But it seems Trump is willing to push a ceasefire even if it condemns the victims and denies them rectitude.

He went so far as to say that Ukraine had fewer buildings intact than Gaza, the tiny Palestinian territory that has seen over 60,000 people killed and been largely destroyed by Israeli forces since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 2,000 Israeli citizens.

Putin could take Ukraine ‘if he wanted’ 

He also claimed that Putin could easily take all of Ukraine if he really wanted – despite the Kremlin’s much-hyped failure to take Kyiv in three days at the onset of the invasion or the Russian military’s inability to continue pushing the frozen front line forward over the last three years.  

“He wants to make a deal,” Trump said of Putin. “And he doesn’t have to make a deal, because if he wanted, he’d get the whole country.”

Trump also criticized former President Joe Biden and complained about Zelensky’s refusal to sign a wildly unbeneficial deal relinquishing Ukraine’s future rare earth minerals in exchange for undefined American security promises. 

Blaming Biden, Zelensky for not stopping Putin 

Trump admitted that Moscow attacked Ukraine but – confusingly – maintained that Biden and Zelensky are to blame for not talking Moscow out of invading. 

Friday’s statement contradicts Trump’s claim earlier this week that Kyiv “never should’ve started” the war. 

“Russia attacked, but there was no reason for them to attack, you could have talked him out,” Trump said.

“Biden said the wrong things. Zelensky said the wrong things,” he added. “That whole thing was going on for years, there was no reason he was going in. It should have never happened.”

Prior to the 2022 full-scale invasion, Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine first in 2014, while former US President Barack Obama was in office, by annexing Crimea and supporting separatist groups in eastern Ukraine. Trump served as the 45th president of the United States between 2017 and 2021. 

Trump has previously blamed the Biden administration for provoking Russia’s 2022 invasion by not barring Ukraine from joining NATO – a key clause in Putin’s December 2021 ultimatum before the 2022 invasion, which also demanded that NATO roll back its presence in other ex-Soviet member states.