Trump Blames Biden for Ukraine Crisis, Accuses US of ‘Taunting’ Putin

The former president has said repeatedly that the escalation of the eight-year-old security and political crisis in Ukraine wouldn’t have taken place on his watch. At a rally on Saturday, he called for “immediate” negotiations on a “peaceful end” to the crisis before it goes nuclear.

Donald Trump has blamed President Joe Biden and his administration for instigating the Ukraine crisis, suggesting that Washington practically “forced” Russian President Vladimir Putin into kicking off the military operation in February.

“They actually taunted him, if you really look at it. Our country, and our so-called leadership, taunted Putin. And listen, I would say you know, they’re almost forcing him to go in with what they’re saying. The rhetoric was so dumb,” Trump said, speaking in an interview with Real America’s Voice on Saturday.

“Look, we are closer to World War III, and this will be the war of all wars because the weaponry is so unbelievably powerful. The nuclear is so powerful, this isn’t army tanks going back and forth and planes shooting each other. This is the big deal and I’m telling you, the way they’re handling it is so bad. And we could very well end up in World War III starting with Ukraine,” Trump warned.

Trump also repeated his oft-made claim that the crisis in Ukraine would never happen if he were still commander-in-chief.

“It would have never happened if I was president. If the election wasn’t rigged, this would not have happened. Ukraine and Russia would not be fighting. It doesn’t mean they’d love each other but there’s no way that they would be fighting. There’s no way that Putin would have gone in,” he said.

Asked by his interviewer whether he would be willing to negotiate a peace agreement, Trump boasted that he “got along with” both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while in office. He recalled that Zelensky had publicly dismissed claims made by Democrats during their 2019 impeachment probe that Trump acted illegally by investigating the shady business activities of Joe Biden’s son Hunter in Ukraine.

“Had we not had that phony Russia-Russia-Russia hoax going all the time by a bunch of sleazebags –it was a creation by the Democrat Party…we would have had a very nice relationship with Russia. But it was very tough under those circumstances. But I had a very good relationship with Putin,” Trump added.

“Again, this would have never happened. Ukraine in a million years – even the other side admits that if Trump was president it wouldn’t have happened,” the former president said.

The former president has weighed in on the Ukraine crisis repeatedly over the past eight months, calling for peace negotiations, offering to mediate, and saying the US needs a “strong” leader at the helm amid a series of international crises plaguing the world.

Russia kicked off a military operation in Ukraine in February after weeks of escalating shelling, sabotage and sniper attacks against the Donbass republics by Ukrainian forces, and fears that Kiev was preparing to launch a full-scale offensive. The crisis followed more than a year of escalating regional tensions and military-buildups, including joint exercises between Ukrainian and NATO forces in September of 2021.

Last December, Moscow offered NATO and the United States a means to dramatically de-escalate tensions via a pair of draft treaties proposing a major pullback of troops, warships, military aircraft and missile systems, and formal, written agreements that Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics would not join NATO. Washington and Brussels balked at the proposals, emphasizing that the alliance’s “open door” policy was non-negotiable.