Egypt Daily News – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would take all of Ukraine if he wanted to, adding that this is why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should work towards reaching an agreement with the country that invaded him nearly three years ago.
Speaking about Putin on Fox News Radio, Trump said: “He wants to make a deal,” and added, “(Putin) doesn’t have to make a deal because if he wanted to, he would have taken the entire country.”
Trump criticized former President Joe Biden and Zelenskyy, accusing them of not doing enough to reach a settlement that could have prevented Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The U.S. president said: “They could have easily talked to Putin about it, but they didn’t know how to talk,” adding that he is not trying “to make Putin look better or kinder,” but insisted that the war should never have happened.
Trump also said that Zelenskyy “has no leverage” and is therefore “not important” for participating in any meetings, referring to criticism over Kyiv’s absence from U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine.
“I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve seen him negotiate without leverage. He has no leverage, and I got tired of him. You just get sick of it and I felt it,” Trump said.
Speaking further about Zelenskyy, Trump added: “He has been holding meetings for three years and has done nothing. So, I don’t think it’s very important for him to be in the meetings, to be honest with you,” adding, “He makes it very hard to make deals. But look at what happened to his country, it’s been destroyed.”
Trump also expressed disappointment over Zelenskyy’s rejection of a rare-earth metals deal that he had requested in exchange for U.S. support to Ukraine, without future guarantees, according to the Ukrainian president.
