US President Donald Trump has said that Ukraine “could have made a deal” in what appears to be the US president blaming Ukraine for starting the war with Russia.
Trump’s comment came after Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said it was a “surprise” his country had not been invited to talks in Saudi Arabia on ending the war with Russia.
The US President in reaction said he was “disappointed” by Ukraine’s reaction.
Russia launched full-scale invasion of Ukraine, about three years ago, sparking the war between the two countries.
On Tuesday, 18th February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Riyadh for the first high-level, face-to-face talks between the two countries since the invasion.
Although they agreed to appoint teams to start negotiating the end of the war, Lavrov said his country would not accept peacekeeping forces from Nato countries in Ukraine under any peace deal.
Meanwhile, European members of Nato, at a meeting in Paris last Monday proposed to sending a peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
European Nato states, who remain committed to supporting Ukraine against Russia, have been smarting at being sidelined by Trump’s unilateral peace initiative, which reversed the resolutely pro-Ukraine policy of his predecessor, Joe Biden, the BBC reports.
“I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat, well, they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily,” Trump told a BBC reporter while speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
“You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he later added.
“I could have made a deal for Ukraine,” he said. “That would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land – and no people would have killed, and no city would have been demolished.”
After the meeting in Riyadh, Trump said he was “much more confident”.
“They were very good,” he said. “Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism.”
“I think I have the power to end this war,” he added.
