GOP nominee Donald Trump praised the military record of Russia earlier this week while deriding the continued military and humanitarian aid that the U.S. is providing Ukraine under the Biden administration.
At an event in Georgia on Tuesday, Trump mocked President Joe Biden and his insistence that America would continue backing Ukraine until they’re able to win the war against Russia. The former president also insisted that if he were to win the White House in November, he’d help to end this war very quickly.
During his speech, Trump pointed to two conflicts from the past that suggest that Moscow won’t lose its war campaign against Ukraine. He referenced the role that the former Soviet Union played in defeating the Nazis during World War II, as well as the failed invasion that Napoleon Bonaparte attempted from France more than 100 years before that.
The former president insisted that it was important for America “to get out” of being involved in the war, but he didn’t give details about his approach to negotiations that would either end the war or end America’s involvement in it.
As he said:
“Biden says, ‘We will not leave until we win.’ What happens if they win? That’s what they do, is they fight wars. As somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. That’s what they do. They fight, and it’s not pleasant.”
A top official for the Trump campaign added this week that the former president wouldn’t be meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, who’s in America to attend the U.N. General Assembly’s opening meeting.
Ukrainian officials issued a statement last week that said Zelenskyy planned to meet Trump while he was in the U.S. The Trump campaign official, though, said that no meeting has been scheduled for those two.
On Tuesday, Trump continued to reiterate that he believes the Ukrainian president is “the greatest salesman on Earth,” as he won over the U.S. to continue providing aid to his country.
As Trump said, in jest:
“Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion.”
The U.S. Department of State says that the U.S. has given Ukraine more than $56 billion in security assistance since Russia first invaded its neighbor in February of 2022.
Trump is no stranger to Zelenskyy, and vice versa. When he was in the White House, he allegedly pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden as well as his son Hunter, as well as a cybersecurity firm that Trump was linking to Ukraine.
Trump then put a hold on $400 million in military aid that the U.S. had promised to Ukraine, which combined with his telephone call led to his first impeachment.
Earlier in the week, Zelenskyy gave an interview to The New Yorker, during which he implied that Trump doesn’t understand the conflict going on with Russia, and that running mate JD Vance is “too radical.”
