President Trump tore into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in remarks at Mar-a-Lago, blaming him for Russia’s war on his country. ”You should have ended it ¿ three years, you should have never started it,’ Trump said
DAILY MAIL ONLINE | Published February 19, 2025
President Donald Trump tore into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after U.S. negotiators opened talks with Russia without him that are meant to find a way to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Trump blamed Zelensky for failing to head off the war inside his country, and the president said he himself was behind a push to require Ukraine to hold new elections before any peace plan can go through.
You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened, even without the United States,’ Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida Tuesday – even as he said ‘I like him personally’ when speaking about Zelensky.
‘You should have ended it – three years, you should have never started it,’ he said, appearing to blame Zelensky for Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Trump offered a positive assessment when asked about the talks, saying he was ‘much more confident’ than before Tuesday’s meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Vladimir Putin aide Yuri Ushakov. Trump said the talks were ‘very good.’
‘Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism,’ Trump said, amid reports it had launched new drone attacks on Kyiv after the talks ended.
Speaking to reporters, Trump was asked if he would accept Russia’s push for new elections in Ukraine – amid fears that the Kremlin would install a pro-Moscow puppet regime. Trump indicated that he himself was for the idea.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine – I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4 per cent approval rating, and where a country has been blown to smithereens.’
Then Trump described some of the massive destruction in Ukraine, suggesting Moscow could have imposed even more if it wished.
‘You got most of the cities are laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed. It looks like a massive demolition site. The whole – I mean, so many of the cities, I mean, they haven’t done it in Kyiv because, I guess they don’t want to shoot too many rockets in there. They’ve done it 20% but they haven’t done it 100%. If they wanted to do it 100% it would probably happen very quickly, but you have cities that are absolutely decimated.
‘And, yeah, I would say that, you know, they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to, wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have to say, like, you know, it’s been a long time since we’ve had an election?
‘That’s not a Russia thing. That’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also,’ Trump said.
Zelensky has demanded that Ukraine be included in any talks about its future
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Smoke rises in the sky over the city after a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 17, 2025. The attack came after U.S.-Russia talks ended in Saudi Arabia
Asked to respond to Ukraine being left out of the first talks, Trump instead spoke about the death toll of thousands. ‘And I think I have the power to end this war,’ he said.
Former Biden NSC spokesman Sean Savett posted on X, ‘Sounds like Trump bought Putin’s propaganda hook, line, and sinker. A reminder no one should need: Putin started the war by invading Ukraine unprovoked and his forces have committed war crimes against the Ukrainian people. Russia is the party responsible for this war continuing.’
Zelensky has demanded Ukraine be involved in any peace talks, which Trump indicated could start as soon as this month.
Trump also commented on the potential for European troops taking a peacekeeping role in the event of a ceasefire. ‘If they want to do that, that’s great. I’m all for it. If they want to do that, I think that’s that’d be fine.’ As for U.S. forces, ‘we won’t have to put any over there, because, you know, we’re very far away,’ Trump said.
That came after Lavrov blasted British PM Keir Starmer’s peacekeeping plans, saying NATO nations can’t patrol Russia’s border with Ukraine ‘under some other flag’.
‘Any appearance by armed forces under some other flag does not change anything. It is of course completely unacceptable,’ Lavrov said.
Trump dismissed complaints by Ukrainian leaders about being left out of talks about their fate. It was a sharp turnaround from the Biden Administration’s mantra of ‘no Ukraine without Ukraine’, while shipping billions in military aid.
‘And I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. But today I heard, oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it – three years, you should have never started it. You could have made a deal,’ Trump complained.
‘I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way.
Trump remarks came as the U.S. and Russia eye potential cooperation on Arctic oil drilling. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), told Politico the two sides discussed ‘specific areas of cooperation.’
‘It was more a general discussion — maybe joint projects in the Arctic. We specifically discussed the Arctic,’ he said.
He also spoke to the New York Times about the potential for U.S. oil and gas firms to return to projects inside Russia, which ended in the years after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine.
‘U.S. oil majors have had very successful business in Russia,’ he said. ‘We believe at some point they will be coming back, because why would they forego these opportunities that Russia gave them to have access to Russian natural resources?’
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SOURCE: www.dailymail.co.uk
RELATED: Trump stuns Europe with opening Ukraine-Russia gambit
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas attend a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Transatlantic Quint on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 15, 2025.
THE HILL | Published February 18, 2025
European leaders are scrambling to respond to President Trump’s first moves to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, shocked to find themselves on the outside of high-stakes talks about the continent’s security and grappling with a potential retreat of U.S. forces from Europe.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “real talks” will involve Europe and Ukraine, as he prepares to meet his Russian counterpart in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. But that follows a slew of mixed messages from Trump’s top officials and a browbeating from Vice President Vance at the Munich Security Conference last week.
Leaders of eight major European countries met Monday to coordinate a response, after being caught on their back foot by Trump’s opening gambit on Russia-Ukraine talks.
Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said he “knew nothing about” the peace discussions in the Middle East until they were announced publicly.
“I think Europe is realizing that they have to come up with a plan, quickly, and on their own to be ready for whatever comes next,” said Sudha David-Wilp, vice president of external relations and senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund.
“The mood was turning from bad to worse,” said one European foreign policy expert who attended the Munich conference, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
European officials expected to be taken to task over low defense spending, but not to be left out of talks completely. The uncertainty is already spurring talks on loosening the EU’s budgetary deficit requirements to allow more spending on defense, the expert said.
“There will probably be a series of announcements by Europeans in the upcoming days to signal to the Americans that they are to be taken seriously — but also to reassure each other,” they said.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the emergency meeting on Monday, inviting the leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the European Union.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer proposed sending British troops to Ukraine as postwar peacekeepers, responding to Trump’s calls for Europe to take more responsibility for its security.
And Zelensky lectured Europe against being treated “like a pushover” and called for the European Union to nominate an envoy to any peace talks.
“There must be a representative of Europe,” Zelensky told reporters, also warning that “Ukraine regards any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as having no results.”
The Trump administration fueled European fears throughout last week, starting with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attending a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels.
Hegseth warned Europe to prepare for a future without U.S. troops on the continent, and triggered whiplash by seeming to rule out Ukraine joining NATO as part of peace talks, before later saying all options remain on the table.
Trump then called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a ceasefire, before later speaking with Zelensky. And Vance closed out the week by lecturing Europeans on democracy, saying its leaders were scared of their own voters.
Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, seemed to confirm Saturday that the U.S. does not see Europe as having a physical seat at the negotiations — but said it would take the region’s interests into account.
“What we don’t want to do is get into a large group discussion,” Kellogg said Saturday in Munich.
That will be true for at least the first round of talks, set to begin in the Saudi capital on Tuesday and include Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, along with Russia officials, according to the State Department.
Rubio said Sunday that the initial talks would determine how serious Russia was, and that if negotiations continue, “Ukraine will have to be involved because they’re the ones that were invaded, and the Europeans will have to be involved because they have sanctions on Putin and Russia as well.”
Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, said Europe’s role remains uncertain.
“Trump does see Putin as his counterpart, and does see the European leaders as lacking in sort of the geopolitical heft — which is true and partly their own fault,” she said.
“At the same time, though, I don’t think it’s clear that the Europeans will be shut out entirely from the negotiations.”
Lithuania’s former foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, wrote on the social media site X that he left Munich in a “low mood” and with “dark thoughts” in the face of a potential reality where the U.S. retreats from security guarantees for Europe.
The U.S. is NATO’s de facto leader, and is seen as the only member country with the capacity to build and supply the necessary military munitions for Ukraine to stay in the fight against Russia.
“People who say that Europe must be at the table should remember that to be invited, you have to matter. If Europe commits to money, troops and a European path for Ukraine, we will make our own table and Ukraine, Putin, and Trump can be invited. But time is running out,” Landsbergis wrote.
I am fully aware that my suggestion leads only to blood, toil, tears and sweat. But we have done it before and we can do it again. The alternative is to rebuild the continent after another devastating war, and that would be much harder and take much more time.”
Franak Viačorka, chief political adviser to Belarus’s exiled president-elect Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said the prevailing theme coming out of Munich is “revision.”
“Alliances, approaches, values, and interests are being reassessed. This is truly a new era — one that could lead us into a world of freedom or destroy us, allowing tyranny to prevail,” he wrote to The Hill by text.
“Certainly, Europe is waking up. And undoubtedly, the new reality is making Europe more determined. The problem is that Europe consists of 27 voices, and the level of motivation and readiness for bold actions varies. I believe that this crisis and this reassessment may unite Europe,including around Ukraine. And I hope around Belarus too.”
Germany and France are the traditional leaders among the 27-nation EU bloc. But the continent remains somewhat paralyzed until Germany carries out its national elections, set for Feb. 23, in terms of major decisions on security funding.
“There is a vacuum of leadership at the moment,” said David-Wilp, from the German Marshall Fund.
“Ukraine is the first hurdle, but I think the larger topic still remains, how are Europeans going to envision a future security order?” she continued, as the U.S. talks about turning its attention toward China and stepping back from its leadership role in NATO and Europe.
Kavanagh said European countries were operating under an old paradigm, where Trump in his first term pushed them to spend more on their defense but still under the direction of American leadership.
“My point to them was, no, instead, you should figure out what you need to defend yourself with no U.S. support, and that should be your goal,” she said of conversations she’s had with European leaders in the lead-up to Trump’s reelection.
She said the remarks from Trump administration officials this week reaffirmed that view.
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SOURCE: www.thehill.com
RELATED: Europe’s Trump dilemma
Even the biggest EU proponents of preserving a close bond with the US know Europe cannot afford to remain dependent.
US Vice President JD Vance attends a bilateral meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the residence of the US Ambassador in Paris on February 11, 2025 [Leah Millis/Reuters]
AL JAZEERA | Published February 18, 2025
US President Donald Trump has announced that he intends to talk “peace in Ukraine” with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at a possible meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The two leaders’ encounter may yield some results – or prove an utter flop, as did their summit in Helsinki in 2018.
But what matters is that Trump’s bombshell of an announcement supercharged a conversation in Europe about what to do with an increasingly untrustworthy ally. The fact that an American president could contemplate, let alone affect, a grand geopolitical bargain in Europe over the heads of the Europeans has sent shivers down the spines of many, as has the prospect of being left alone to handle a hostile and aggressive Russia.
Discussions on how to respond to this predicament seem to have split into two lines of thinking.
One posits that the only realistic option is to hug the United States ever tighter in the hope that strategic withdrawal never takes place. That implies ignoring Trump’s rhetorical antics and, if need be, pandering to his Siberia-sized ego and meeting some of the demands he makes.
To please the US president, some have suggested slashing tariffs on US-made cars or purchasing larger volumes of liquefied natural gas from across the Atlantic. Everyone agrees that European states should spend more on defence, especially on US-made weapons. There is eagerness to do so, especially on the European Union’s eastern flank; Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania have already joined the queue to acquire the F-35, a state-of-the-art fighter jet from US defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
Ukraine is a proud member of this group, too. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy started courting Trump well before he won the US election in November. It seems his pitch to grant the US access to Ukraine’s critical minerals has appealed to the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) contingent and the US president himself.
Sure enough, Zelenskyy was not given a heads-up about the US president’s call with Putin. The sense of betrayal is real. At the Munich Security Conference earlier this week, the Ukrainian president called for European unity in a clear rebuke of the divisive speech delivered by Trump’s vice president, JD Vance.
However, Zelenskyy will continue to lobby the notoriously mercurial Trump as well as old-school Republicans in the US administration, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, in order to shape the US position. In Munich, the Ukrainian president met with a group of Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham, who called for extending US support for the Ukrainian army.
The Kremlin and MAGA crowd seem to believe that Ukrainians have little to no agency. But three years of war shows otherwise. For a ceasefire to work, Ukraine would need to buy in and be present at the table – a point Zelenskyy made quite clear in Munich.
That said, it is rather unlikely that Trump would accommodate Kyiv. Scaling down support is a policy direction he embraces and his electorate is going along with it.
That is why there is a second line of thinking in Europe that calls for ending European dependence on the US. A longstanding proponent of this position is French President Emmanuel Macron. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Macron renewed calls for strategic autonomy in critical domains, such as defence and technology. The AI summit in Paris earlier this month, along with the EU’s resolve to put up stiff resistance in a future tariff war with the US, indicate there is momentum in this direction.
Macron has also been the first European leader to float the idea of sending European troops to Ukraine. Though he does not believe EU members and the United Kingdom would be capable of despatching up to 200,000, a number mentioned by Zelenskyy, the option, as far as France is concerned, is very much on the table.
Macron sees Trump’s initiative as an opportunity for Europeans to “muscle up” and become a security guarantor. Ukraine can thus become Europe’s path to global relevance.
To be sure, this vision has plenty of potential weaknesses. Macron is vulnerable domestically and who will succeed him at the Elysee Palace is a pending question. Germany, likely to be governed by the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) after the February 23 elections, is not nearly as hawkish. The populist challenge to Superpower Europe can also throw sand in the wheels.
European militaries have no capacity and are overreliant on the US. Budgets are strained, too, raising the classic guns-vs-butter dilemma. Germany’s debt brake, which the CDU is apparently reluctant to revisit, does not make matters any better. Also adding to the mix are longer-term concerns that have to do with productivity growth, innovation, and technological development which were highlighted in a September report by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. All that should sober expectations that Europe could play in the same league as the US and China.
While the EU would struggle to emerge as a superpower on the world stage, its dependence on the US is unsustainable. Trump’s “America First” policy will inevitably continue to nudge Europeans more and more in Macron’s preferred direction. The takeaway from the US outreach to Putin is that the old rules and conventions governing transatlantic relations do not hold.
Even for the diehard believers in a bond with the US, hedging – a humbler version of strategic autonomy, essentially – has become the only viable option in the long run.
Rather than full divorce and dissolution of NATO, hedging implies pushing back against and conditioning US behaviour as much as possible. Or simply pursuing an independent policy without regard to what Washington might think on issues such as China, trade or regulations of the tech industry.
We are likely to see more and more of that going forward, even beyond Trump’s term.
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SOURCE: www.aljazeera.com
