‘I Thought Putin Was Negotiating When He Sent Russian Troops To The Border’ – Donald Trump Admits He Was ‘Surprised’ By The Invasion Of Ukraine
Former President Donald Trump admitted he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was only trying to ‘negotiate’ when he sent troops to the Ukraine border and was ‘surprised’ when the Kremlin leader actually invaded the country.
‘I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,’ Trump told the Washington Examiner during a Tuesday evening phone interview from his Mar-a-Lago estate. ‘I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.’
Trump, who seemingly developed a close working relationship with Moscow during his presidency, said Putin has ‘very much changed’ since the pair last worked together.
‘I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,’ Trump said. ‘And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.’
The former American president has faced criticisms over his relationship with Putin and most recently for failing to criticize him in wake of the invasion.
Trump’s fellow Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien, have publicly denounced the Kremlin leader and said there would be no pity for Putin sympathizers in their party.
Similarly, Democrat President Joe Biden called Putin a ‘tyrant’ and responded to his invasion with responded with diplomatic and economic sanctions.
Trump on Tuesday rejected the notion that he was soft on the Russian leader and argued that Moscow never would’ve invaded Ukraine if he was still in office.
‘I’ve been very, very tough on Putin. I get a bad rap on that,’ Trump told the news outlet. ‘At the same time, I got along with him very well. But I got along with most [world leaders] very well.’
The billionaire ex-president also argued that he often pushed against Putin’s agendas while he was in office.
‘When you think of it, who was tougher on Russia than me?’ Trump asked, before adding: ‘I got billions and billions of dollars’ for NATO.
‘Now, all that money is going against Russia, so I did that. I closed the pipeline. You know, the pipeline was closed, and Biden opened it. Plus, I did the biggest sanctions anybody’s ever done on Russia,’ he said.
‘I’ve been very critical of Putin from the standpoint of the pipeline, from the standpoint of raising billions and billions of dollars in NATO to protect, primarily, Europe against Russia. Nobody else did that.’
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what has since become the largest assault on a European state since World War Two ended in 1945.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said early Wednesday that peace talks were sounding more realistic but leaders still needed more time. Officials are hopeful the war could end sooner than expected, possibly by May.
‘The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine,’ Zelensky said in a video address on Wednesday.
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