Former President Donald Trump said that if elected, he would end the war between Ukraine and Russia within “24 hours” during a recent interview.
When pressed further, Trump said that “it would be easy” because “a lot of it has to do with the money,” while “a lot of it has to do with the military” aid that the United States is giving.
“That war has to be stopped. That war is a disaster,” Trump remarked. “I’m talking about the human” loss of life, he said, adding that it is “far greater” than what is being reported.
“You don’t knock down a whole city and say that two people got hurt,” Trump said, referring to reports of casualties and damage from the war. “Thousands of people are being killed in these cities that are being knocked down ... these are massive buildings.”
Trump added that when large apartment buildings are being knocked down, “thousands of people are being killed that nobody’s talking about.”
The former commander-in-chief has made similar comments about stopping the Ukraine–Russia conflict, which erupted last year. The United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in weapons, equipment, and other military aid to the Zelenskyy government, as it has unleashed round after round of sanctions targeting Russia’s leadership.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not declared his candidacy, has given different responses to the conflict. Earlier this year, DeSantis called the war a “territorial dispute” and suggested the United States not get involved, but later, he walked that comment back.
“What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now, which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately, but they had,” DeSantis said in March. “There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there. So, that’s some difficult fighting, and that’s what I was referring to, and so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it.”
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has signaled that the U.S. should provide more support to Kyiv. “They say the U.S. shouldn’t care about Ukraine because this war isn’t our fight. Some call it a mere ‘territorial dispute.’ They say we should ignore Ukraine so we can focus on China. This has it backward. China loses if Ukraine wins,” Haley said.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, also undeclared for 2024, has called for accelerated U.S. support for Ukraine.
Assassination Attempt?
Earlier this week, Moscow announced that an alleged assassination plot designed to kill Putin failed, saying that it took down two attacking drones that had targeted the Kremlin. The Kremlin further blamed Ukraine’s government, while Kyiv denied those charges.“We view these actions as a planned terrorist attack and an assassination attempt targeting the President, carried out ahead of Victory Day,” the statement said, making reference to the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Germany during World War II. “Russia reserves the right to take countermeasures wherever and whenever it deems appropriate,” it added.
Zelenskyy told a news conference that the Kyiv government wasn’t behind the incident.
“We are not attacking Putin or Moscow,” he said in Finland on Wednesday. “We are fighting on our own territory, defending our villages and cities,” he added. “We do not have enough weapons even for this. That is why we do not use them elsewhere. We have a deficit. We cannot use everything and everywhere.”
