{"id":304162,"date":"2025-02-25T08:25:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T08:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=304162"},"modified":"2025-02-27T07:03:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T07:03:03","slug":"trump-blames-ukraine-over-war-with-russia-saying-it-could-have-made-a-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=304162","title":{"rendered":"Trump blames Ukraine over war with Russia, saying it could have made a deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Smith \u2013 The Guardian Feb 19, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

President Donald Trump has criticised Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he was \u201cdisappointed\u201d that the Ukrainian leader complained about being left out of talks between the US and Russia<\/a> over ending the Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

Trump also seemed to blame Kyiv<\/a> for Moscow\u2019s invasion \u2013 even as he said he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks \u2013 claiming Ukraine could have \u201cmade a deal\u201d to avert war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very disappointed, I hear that they\u2019re upset about not having a seat [at the talks],\u201d Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian reaction. The US president said a \u201chalf baked\u201d negotiator could have secured a settlement years ago \u201cwithout the loss of much land\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday I heard, \u2018oh, well, we weren\u2019t invited.\u2019 Well, you\u2019ve been there for three years … You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Florida on Tuesday night, Trump increased pressure on Zelenskyy to hold elections \u2013 echoing one of Moscow\u2019s key demands.<\/p>\n

The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance towards Russia<\/a> in a shift that has alarmed European leaders.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy had earlier on Tuesday criticised the US-Russia talks for excluding Kyiv, saying efforts to end the war must be \u201cfair\u201d<\/a> and involve European countries, while postponing his own trip to Saudi Arabia, where the US-Russia talks took place.<\/p>\n

Talks \u201care taking place between representatives of Russia and representatives of the United States of America. About Ukraine<\/a> \u2013 about Ukraine again \u2013 and without Ukraine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian president\u2019s comments appeared to anger Trump, who proceeded to launch a series of attacks on Zelenskyy, who has led Kyiv\u2019s fight against Russia\u2019s February 2022 invasion.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the US would support Russia\u2019s demands to force Zelenskyy to hold new elections as part of any deal, Trump said: \u201cThey want a seat at the table, but you could say … wouldn\u2019t the people of Ukraine have a say? It\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve had an election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a Russian thing, that\u2019s something coming from me, from other countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a situation where we haven\u2019t had elections in Ukraine, where we have essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine \u2013 I mean, I hate to say it, but he\u2019s down at 4% approval rating \u2013 and where a country has been blown to smithereens. Most of the cities are laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed. It looks like a massive demolition site.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In an interview with German public broadcaster ARD aired on Tuesday, Zelenskyy defended his popularity, saying: \u201cI\u2019m president of Ukraine because 73% of people voted for me. And today I\u2019m president because the majority in my country support me. I\u2019m a patriot, just like the people defending our country.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course Russia wants to get rid of me. Maybe not physically any longer, like they did at the beginning of the war but politically. And that\u2019s absolutely understandable as I\u2019m a very uncomfortable person, uncomfortable for Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained in office as Ukraine is still under martial law.<\/p>\n

Sean Savett, who was spokesperson for the White House National Security Council under then president Joe Biden, said in a social media post: \u201cSounds like Trump bought Putin\u2019s propaganda hook, line, and sinker.<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Also see:<\/p>\n

Diplomacy Watch: Did Boris Johnson help stop a peace deal in Ukraine?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

A recent piece in Foreign Affairs revealed that Kyiv and Moscow may have had a tentative deal to end the war all the way back in April.<\/h3>\n

Conner Echols \u2013 Responsible Statecraft Sept 2022<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Russia and Ukraine may have agreed<\/a> on a tentative deal to end the war in April, according to a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,\u201d wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. \u201cRussia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news highlights the impact of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u2019s efforts to stop negotiations, as journalist Branko Marcetic noted<\/a> on Twitter. The decision to scuttle the deal coincided with Johnson\u2019s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged<\/a> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia for two key reasons: Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West isn\u2019t ready for the war to end.<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indeed, in April 2022 Moscow offered Ukraine a peace deal on very favourable terms. What this article omits to say is that the Biden administration then sent Boris Johnson to Kiev with promises of military support to persuade Zelensky from signing <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":252458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304163,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304162\/revisions\/304163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/252458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}