President Donald Trump put some blame on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for choosing to fight Russia rather than make a deal. In April of 2022, Zelensky had nearly completed negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin when members of NATO pushed Kiev to fight rather than sign the agreement.
“Look, Zelensky was fighting a much bigger entity, much bigger, much more powerful. He shouldn’t have done that because we could have made a deal and it would have been a deal that would have been — it would have been a nothing deal,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday.
Trump may be referring to the negotiations that nearly ended the Russian invasion of Ukraine within the first two months. Under that deal, Russian forces would have withdrawn from Ukraine, including the Donbas, if Kiev would never join NATO and committed to some demilitarization.
During the interview, Trump indicated that he would have taken that deal. “I could have made that deal so easily. And Zelensky decided that I want to fight,” he said. Trump went on to say his predecessor, Joe Biden, did a “horrible job” by allowing the war to start.
Trump also placed some of the blame on Putin, noting “he shouldn’t have” invaded Ukraine several times.
When Zelensky was close to signing the deal, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev where he pushed Zelensky to forgo diplomacy and attempt to drive the Russian forces from Ukraine. At the time, members of NATO promised to give Ukraine everything it needed to win the war.
Trump says Zelensky now wants to negotiate an end to the war. “Zelensky — I will say this, he wants to settle now. He’s had enough. He shouldn’t have allowed this to happen, either,” the President said.
Putin has largely kept his demands consistent throughout the war; the Kremlin wants a US pledge that Ukraine never joins NATO, limits on what Western arms are sent to Kiev, and recognition of Ukrainian territory annexed by Moscow. At the start of the conflict, Russia had only annexed Crimea. Since then, Moscow has also held referendums and seized four additional Ukrainian oblasts.
Trump refused to tell Hannity if he had spoken with Putin. He did say he wanted to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible, claiming millions were dying. “It’s gotta end. These are human beings that are being slaughtered” on the battlefield, he said.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute. He hosts The Kyle Anzalone Show and is co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Connor Freeman.
