Former US president Donald Trump on Thursday blamed Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia and said that the Ukrainian President failed to halt hostilities before they started.
During a PBD podcast, Republican nominee for the upcoming US presidential election said, “Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen I’ve ever seen. Every time he comes in, we give him $100 billion.Who else got that kind of money in history? There’s never been (anyone).”
“And that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him, because I feel very badly for those people. He should never have let that war start,” he added.
Trump also launched a scathing attack on President Joe Biden and accused him instigating the Ukraine war.
Trump campaign also doubled down on Biden and said that the former US President was “clearly talking about Biden” and not Zelensky when he made his remarks about culpability for the war.
Trump’s remarks sparked an immediate backlash as critics accused the 78-year-old Republican former president of being a “traitor” and an “idiot.”
“What a despicable Traitor,” the Republicans Against Trump lobby group posted on X, alongside footage of Trump’s podcast remarks.
“He’s an idiot, and the whole world wonders why so many Americans don’t see it,” added national security analyst John Sipher, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
Ukraine has been cautious about disclosing information regarding its casualties, fearing that it might demoralize its citizens after more than two years of Russia’s invasion. However, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal last month, the war has claimed the lives of or wounded a million soldiers on both sides.
As one of Ukraine’s primary supporters, the United States has provided Zelensky’s government with more than $64.1 billion in military assistance since the beginning of the conflict.
Despite Kyiv being a US ally and Moscow being considered an adversary, Trump highlighted his positive relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin during a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky in September.
It is worth noting that Trump faced impeachment for withholding crucial weaponry from Ukraine following Russia’s smaller-scale invasion in 2014, as he pressured its government to announce investigations into Biden, who was then his election rival.
Furthermore, a federal investigation uncovered numerous connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, which was found to have interfered in the 2016 US election to benefit the Republican candidate.
Criticism surrounding Trump’s apparent closeness to Putin intensified last week due to allegations that, while serving as president, he sent the Russian leader Covid tests despite a shortage in the US, and that Trump and Putin may have been in contact numerous times since 2021.
