Donald Trump Falls Back On His Favourite Kremlin Talking Point After Putin Talks Cancelled

Donald Trump has once again fallen back on his favourite Kremlin talking point after his plans to hold peace talks with Vladimir Putin collapsed. The US president wrongly claimed – for the umpteenth time – that Ukraine had started the war in the first place. That echoes Russia’s claims that the eastward expansion of NATO – and Ukraine’s plans to join the alliance – led to the conflict. In actual fact, the war began with Russia’s invasion of its neighbour in February 2022. Trump was responding to a question about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy wanting to buy more missiles from the US. Trump said: “He’s always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war you’ve got to know that you can win the war. You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.” Trump claimed last week that he would hold another peace summit with Putin, this time in Budapest, within a fortnight. However, Russia has refused to accept America’s ceasefire terms, so the talks have been called off. It is the latest blow to Trump’s hopes of ending the war, and led to fresh claims that the US president is “being played” by his Russian counterpart.