Donald Trump has blamed Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war with Russia the day after a massive Russian attack killed 35 people and injured 117 others in Ukraine.
The US president said the Ukrainian leader shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin for “millions of people dead” in the Ukraine war.
“You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” he told reporters at the White House, also blaming former US President Joe Biden for the conflict.
Trump’s comments come after widespread outrage over Russia’s attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday, which was the deadliest Russian attack on civilians this year.BBC visits scene of destruction in Sumy after Russian attack
Trump said earlier the Russian attack had been a “mistake”.
“Millions of people dead because of three people,” Trump said on Monday. “Let’s say Putin number one, let’s say Biden who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky.”
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, but not “millions”, of people have been killed or injured on all sides since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Questioning Zelensky’s competence, Trump remarked that the Ukrainian leader was “always looking to purchase missiles”.
“When you start a war, you got to know you can win,” the US president said.
Tensions between Trump and the Ukrainian leader have been high ever since their heated confrontation at the White House in February.
In an interview before Russia’s latest attack, Zelensky urged Trump to visit Ukraine before striking a deal with Putin to end the war.
“Please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead,” Zelensky said in an interview for CBS’s 60 Minutes programme.
Russia’s attack on the city Sumy killed at least 35 people and injured 117 others.
Moscow said it had fired two Iskander missiles at a meeting of Ukrainian soldiers, killing 60 of them, but did not provide any evidence.
Trump insisted he wanted to “stop the killing” and signalled there would be proposals soon, but did not elaborate.
The conflict goes back more than a decade, to 2014, when Ukraine’s pro-Russian president was overthrown. Russia then annexed Crimea and backed insurgents in bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine. – BBC
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