Donald Trump says ‘Putin has let me down’, calls to end oil purchases from Russia
Trump expressed disappointment in Putin for the Ukraine war, which he believes he could have prevented. He urged countries to stop buying Russian oil, claiming the war would not have occurred if he were President.
US President Donald Trump expressed disappointment over Russian President Vladimir Putin for not preventing the Ukraine war, which caused significant casualties. He also criticised European countries for purchasing oil from Russia amid the ongoing war.
“He has let me down. I mean, he's killing many people and he's losing more people than he's, you know, than he's killing. I mean, frankly, Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers,” Bloomberg News quoted Donald Trump at a press conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Trump admitted that although he believed the Russia-Ukraine war would be the “easiest” to resolve, that was not the case.
Urging countries to stop buying oil from Russia, Trump said, “Very simply, if the price of oil comes down, Putin is going to drop out." He’s going to have no choice. He’s going to drop out of that war," he added.
“I’m willing to do other things, but not when the people that I’m fighting for are buying oil from Russia,” Trump said.
Furthermore, he insisted that the war in Ukraine would not have started if he had stayed in the White House."This was a thing that would have never happened had I been president. If I were president, it would have never happened. And it didn't happen for four years," Trump said.
Following a summit between Putin and Trump in Alaska, where the US leader called on the Russian president to hold talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, a peace deal failed to materialise.
Ukraine and Russia are currently engaged in a conflict that began in 2014 and intensified into a full-blown war in February 2022. The conflict started with Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, which was followed by support for separatist movements in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, Bloomberg reported.
According to the UN, the conflict has claimed over 10,000 civilian lives, with many more injured. It has also forced millions from their homes, presenting a major humanitarian crisis.
(With inputs from Bloomberg.)