Washington: In a statement made at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of being equally responsible as Russian President Vladimir Putin for the ongoing war in Ukraine and the resulting mass casualties.
“You don’t start a war with an enemy 20 times your size and then hope others will send you some missiles,” Trump told reporters, indirectly criticizing Kyiv’s strategy and support expectations from the West. He also blamed President Joe Biden for the deaths in the conflict, claiming Biden had "no idea what he was doing."
Trump’s remarks came shortly after a deadly Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy, which killed 34 people, including two children, and injured 117 others. The attack is considered the deadliest on a civilian area in Ukraine this year and has drawn strong condemnation from Kyiv’s Western allies.
Previously, Trump had referred to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a “mistake,” but his latest comments mark a sharper shift, assigning blame not only to Putin but also to Biden and Zelensky.
“Three people are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands,” Trump said on Monday. “First, you could say Putin. Second, Biden, who had no clue what he was doing. And third, Zelensky.”
While estimates do not support the claim of “hundreds of thousands” of deaths directly, thousands of lives have indeed been lost since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
