U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House Oval Office on February 28, 2025 (The White House/YouTube/Wikimedia Commons)
David Badash
President Donald Trump is blaming Ukraine for being attacked by Russia in President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war against the sovereign nation.
In a rambling and wide-ranging “Fox & Friends” interview on Tuesday, the President covered a lot of ground, including declaring that it would be unfair to Russia to allow Ukraine to become a part of NATO.
“It can’t be NATO because that’s just not something that would ever ever happen. He couldn’t. They couldn’t do that. If you were Russia, who would want to have your enemy, your opponent, sitting on your line? You don’t do that,” Trump said.
Trump then falsely claimed, “It was always thought that Ukraine was a, sort of a buffer between Russia and the rest of Europe — and it was, it was a big, wide buffer — everything worked out well until Biden got involved.”
Ukraine was promised future entry into NATO at an undetermined date, back in 2008. Finland borders Russia and is a member of NATO. Trump also did not say why there needed to be a “buffer” between Russia and Europe.
Trump also expressed that, he believes, Ukraine will have to give up land to Russia.
Asked what the European leaders thought about “land swaps,” which may or may not include Russia giving back land it took illegally, but no actual Russian land, Trump replied: “While they understand — look, everybody can play cute and this and that, but, you know, Ukraine’s gonna get their life back.”
“They’re gonna stop having people killed all over the place, and they’re gonna get a lot of land,” he claimed, not mentioning that that land belongs to Ukraine.
Then he accused Ukraine of attacking Russia, and suggested they were the provocateur.
“But this was a war, and Russia is a powerful military nation, you know, whether people like it or not, it’s a powerful nation,” Trump said. “It’s a much bigger nation.”
“It’s not a war that should have been started. You don’t do that. You don’t take on a nation that’s ten times your size and you know, military experts — look, look, here, if it wasn’t for the greatest military equipment. We make the greatest military equipment in the world, and we gave them— So, you know, whatever they took — probably a lot of money, too — but they had tremendous, you know, they had the Patriot missile, which is the best in the world.”
“All the equipment, we make the best equipment in the world by far. Everyone else is like, nothing. So we gave them a lot of equipment. Now, with that said, the Ukrainian soldiers were brave as hell. Cause’s fighting a force that’s much, much bigger. Superior, much more powerful.”
Critics denounced Trump’s claims.
“For the umpteenth time, Trump blames Ukraine for starting the war. Trump can never be trusted. He works for Putin,” wrote podcaster and former GOP congressman Joe Walsh.
“Really crystallizesTrump’s world view that bigger nations can bully smaller ones just because they can,” wrote communications expert Eric Koch.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Zelensky Rejects Trump’s Push for Peace Deal
The Ukrainian leader has again claimed that a ceasefire is needed to negotiate an end to the conflict with Russia
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has rejected US President Donald Trump’s call for a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, reiterating that a truce has to be implemented before discussing details of a possible settlement.
Zelensky made the statement on Sunday during a joint press-conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who will accompany him to Washington for talks with Trump on Monday.
The Ukrainian leader claimed that Moscow had made “many demands” on the settlement of the conflict and that Kiev needs to be made aware of them.
“If there are really as many as we have heard, then it will take time to go through them all,” he said.
According to Zelensky, it is “impossible” for Ukraine to negotiate “under pressure of weapons.”
“It is necessary to ceasefire and work quickly on a final deal,” he insisted.
Russia has repeatedly turned down Ukraine’s demands for a ceasefire, saying that a pause in the fighting would be exploited by Kiev to rearm and regroup its forces.
The Ukrainian leader also ruled out the possibility of making territorial concessions to Russia as part of a peace deal, saying that trading land is forbidden by the country’s constitution.
Earlier this month, Trump expressed frustration over Zelensky’s attempts to use the Ukrainian constitution as an excuse to avoid making compromises. The US president said that he was “a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, well, I have to get constitutional approval… I mean, he has got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap.”
During the press-conference with Zelensky, Von der Leyen insisted that “Ukraine must become a steel porcupine, indigestible to potential invaders,” repeating a metaphor that she has used before. She promised that the EU would keep working to strengthen the Ukrainian defense industry, especially when it comes to drone production.
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