US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths.
Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden.
Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.”
Photo: AFP
“Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and Zelenskiy,” Trump said during a meeting with the president of El Salvador.
Trump then doubled down on his attack on Zelenskiy.
“He’s always looking to purchase missiles,” he said dismissively of the Ukrainian president’s attempts to maintain his nation’s defenses against the Russian invasion.
“When you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war,” Trump said. “You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”
Relations between Trump and Zelenskiy have been tense ever since the US president stunned the world by opening talks with Russia in February.
In the buildup to their televised row on Feb. 28 Trump repeatedly echoed Moscow’s talking points — blaming Ukraine for the war and calling Zelenskiy a “dictator without elections.”
Zelenskiy has since tried to patch things up, including sending a delegation to Washington last week to discuss a rare earths deal Trump has called for that would give the US preferential access to Ukrainian natural resources, but Trump has stepped up his rhetoric in the past few days.
Trump insisted a deal to end the Ukraine war was possible, despite Ukrainian accusations that Moscow is stalling.
“I want to stop the killing and I think we’re doing well in that regard. I think you’ll have some very good proposals very soon,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments came despite a deadly Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday that killed at least 35 people, one of the deadliest attacks of the war.
The US president on Sunday said that the attack was a “mistake,” but did not elaborate.
Russia on Monday said that its missiles hit a meeting of Ukrainian army commanders.
In related news, Ukraine on Monday held a news conference at which Chinese prisoners of war told journalists they hoped to be swapped and warned other Chinese nationals not to go to fight.
The event came after Zelenskiy accused Moscow of dragging Beijing into its invasion, saying on Friday last week that several hundred Chinese were fighting at the front line.
The Kremlin denied the claim, while Beijing warned parties to the conflict against making “irresponsible remarks.”
Two Chinese men dressed in camouflage uniform were escorted into a Kyiv news conference in handcuffs and sat flanked by armed Ukrainian troops, with no way of telling whether they were expressing themselves of their own free will.
Speaking Chinese, they said they were captured fighting in the eastern Donetsk region after joining the army via online ads.
“I hope China can exchange me with Russia and Ukraine, and bring me back to China,” said one of the men, 26-year-old Zhang Renbo.
The other, 33-year-old Wang Guangjun, said: “To my compatriots who want to join the Ukraine war, I want to say don’t take part in this war.”
The soldier accused Russia of lying about its military strength and Ukraine’s weakness.
“When you really participate in the war, when the moment of the fighting comes, you will find that everything is a lie,” he said.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
CONSOLIDATION: The Indonesian president has used the moment to replace figures from former president Jokowi’s tenure with loyal allies In removing Indonesia’s finance minister and U-turning on protester demands, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is scrambling to restore public trust while seizing a chance to install loyalists after deadly riots last month, experts say. Demonstrations that were sparked by low wages, unemployment and anger over lawmakers’ lavish perks grew after footage spread of a paramilitary police vehicle running over a delivery motorcycle driver. The ensuing riots, which rights groups say left at least 10 dead and hundreds detained, were the biggest of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s term, and the ex-general is now calling on the public to restore their
RSS