US President Donald Trump said during a cabinet meeting on 26 February that Vladimir Putin will need to make certain concessions as part of settling the war in Ukraine.
Trump’s statement came after a series of his claims regarding the war in Ukraine, where he largerly supported Putin, and the US-Russian meeting about the war on 18 February. The US President said earlier that “Ukraine should not have started the war” and called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections.”
When asked if Putin would need to make concessions in resolving the Ukraine war, the American president affirmed, “He will have to.”
Trump did not specify what these concessions might involve. He claimed that if he had not been elected US president, the war in Ukraine “would have continued for a long time.”
“I have great respect for Ukraine as fighters. But without our equipment, the war would have been over in a very short period of time,” Trump said.
The US president previously claimed that Ukraine “can forget about NATO” as part of a future “peace agreement.”
Trump also refused to promise specific security guarantees to Ukraine from the United States, saying that Europe should provide these guarantees.
Read also:
- Trump says Zelenskyy will come to US on 28 February to sign subsoil deal
- The peace trap: Five ways Putin wins if Ukraine freezes the war
- Former US ambassador says Ukrainians should not overreact to Trump’s statements
