Although newly christened American President Donald Trump did not mention Ukraine in his inaugural address as president, he did name-drop the country later on at a rally when repeating his campaign promise to end “needless wars” like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that “should never have started.”
He went on to bring up Ukraine, Russia, and their leaders multiple times in the televised address.
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On ending the war in Ukraine
When asked in the Oval Office if he would end the war in Ukraine on Day 1 as promised on the campaign trail, he responded with a cheeky remark and a smirk. “Well this is only a half a day – I have another half a day.”
When asked later for more information about how he intended to end the war, Trump continued to demur. “Well, we’re going to try and get it done as quickly as possible,” he said.
“It should have never started, the war with Ukraine. Russia should have never started it,” he said, pointing a rare finger at the Kremlin for initiating the war. “It would have never started if I were president.”
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Previously, Trump has claimed that American support for Ukraine joining NATO had justified an invasion by Russia. “A big part of the problem is, Russia – for many, many years, long before Putin – said, ‘You could never have NATO involved with Ukraine,’” he said, as Reuters reported. “Now, they’ve said that. That’s been, like, written in stone.”
Trump’s proposed Ukraine envoy, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Keith Kellogg has proposed a peace plan to end the war that includes making concessions to Russia regarding denying Ukraine membership in NATO in exchange for a more favorable ceasefire deal to end the war.
On the NATO alliance
The first mention of Ukraine came as Trump railed against NATO, declaring that “NATO has to pay more money. NATO has to pay 5%.”
He said the US had spent “$200 billion more than NATO” and called the alleged disparity “ridiculous” because “we have an ocean in between” the US and Europe. “They’ve got to equalize.”
Despite NATO’s formal support for Ukraine’s future membership since the 2008 Bucharest Summit, the country has yet to receive an invitation to join the alliance.
Trump has long been skeptical of NATO, reiterating last month a familiar threat to leave the alliance if its members did not step up spending.
“Europe is in for a tiny fraction of the money that we’re in,” Trump said. “We have a thing called the ocean in between us, right? Why are we in for billions and billions of dollars more money than Europe?” he asked.
On meeting with Putin
He eventually mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when signing his second batch of executive orders in the Oval Office after a reporter asked him for further details about how he plans to deal with the leaders. “I have to speak to President Putin,” he said.
“He can’t be thrilled – he’s not doing so well,” the president said with his eyebrows raised. “I mean, he’s grinding it out, but most people thought that war would have been over in about one week and now you’re into three years.”
Trump continued to explain why it was in both Putin’s interest to agree to end the war as soon as possible. “I think he’d be very well off to end that war.
“I think he’d be very well off to end that war. We have numbers that almost a million Russian soldiers have been killed, about 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed,” he claimed, noting that the Russian economy was in shambles too. “Russia’s bigger – they have more soldiers to lose – but that’s no way to run a country.”
He added that Zelensky is already on board. “Zelensky wants to make a deal, I don’t know if Putin does… He should make a deal. I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think Russia’s going to be in big trouble.”
A reporter then asked the US president if he would continue issuing sanctions against Russia and supporters of Ukraine’s invasion, or whether he would turn to tariffs as he had discussed in the past.
“The word tariff is much better because it keeps your dollar stronger,” he said. “I think tariffs are more effective.” He then veered into a discussion about Iran, Hezbollah, and Israel before turning back to signing the unknown executive actions on his desk.
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