Trump Fell Back On His Favourite Kremlin Talking Point Just Hours After Hosting European Leaders

US President Donald Trump could not wait to start talking about the Kremlin's main talking points again.Donald Trump spent Monday welcoming Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House and rubbing shoulders with European allies while they praised his (so far unsuccessful) efforts to end the war.By Tuesday, just hours after the European contingent left the White House, he was back to his old habits of repeating Kremlin propaganda.Yes, despite making a huge show of his friendship with European leaders and promising to offer security guarantees to Ukraine if a peace deal is reached, the US president could hardly wait to start blaming Kyiv for the conflict.During a lengthy phone-in with Fox & Friends, he claimed that Vladimir Putin – a war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court – was driven to his barbaric 2022 invasion by Ukraine’s attempts to get closer to the West.The president said: “Russia is a powerful military nation.“You know, whether people like it or not, it’s a powerful nation. It’s a much bigger nation. You don’t do that. You don’t take on a nation that’s 10 times your size.”He also suggested Ukraine’s bid to get itself into Nato was a driving factor, telling the broadcasters: “It was always a no-no, you could not. Russia said, ‘We don’t want the so-called opponent or the enemy,’ let’s use that term, ‘We don’t want them on our border.’ And they were right.”Trump ignored how Latvia, Estonia and Finland also border Russia but are now all Nato members.He continued: “I hope that Zelenskyy, President Zelenskyy will do what he has to do. He has to show some flexibility, also.”Putin holds a fifth of Ukraine’s land and is determined to demilitarise the country as a whole.Zelenskyy, meanwhile, wants Ukraine’s sovereign borders back.Despite hosting the Ukrainian president and seven other European leaders including Keir Starmer at the White House on Monday, Trump seemed much more excited about the memory of his Alaska meeting with Putin last Friday.“You saw that when he got off his plane, I got off my plane,” he said. “There’s a warmth there that you can’t... you know, there’s a, there’s a decent feeling.”Trump also suggested that it was the US’s prestige which drew the seven European leaders to his summit with Zelenskyy on Monday.He said: “I think really, they have respect for our country again. A year ago, they wouldn’t have come. They wouldn’t have even thought about it. Now we’ve become the hottest country anywhere in the world. Everybody wants to be here. When I made the call, they came.”Actually, European leaders chose to be there after Trump and his administration attacked Zelenskyy during his last White House visit in a moment which horrified Ukraine’s allies.As European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media: “At the request of President Zelenskyy, I will join the meeting with President Trump and other European leaders in the White House tomorrow.”Just for good measure, Trump also used his interview to inflate his latest claims about the peace deals he has overseen since getting into office.He told Fox he has helped end seven wars, instead of the six he usually boasts about.It’s worth remembering that he once promised to end the Ukraine war within the first 24 hours of his second term in the White House.That was seven months ago.Related...UK Says Putin 'Has Never Been Serious About Peace' After Russian Strikes Kill 10 In UkraineRussia Experts Worry Onetime KGB Agent, Now Murderous Dictator Putin Will Play TrumpTrump Eases Up On Vladimir Putin By Offering The Russian Dictator 1 Major Concession

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