Trump hits Zelenskyy for his war with Russia

 Daily Mail:

President Donald Trump tore into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after U.S. negotiators opened talks with Russia without him that are meant to find a way to end Russia's war on Ukraine.

Trump blamed Zelensky for failing to head off the war inside his country, and the president said he himself was behind a push to require Ukraine to hold new elections before any peace plan can go through.

‘You have leadership now that's allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened, even without the United States,’ Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida Tuesday – even as he said ‘I like him personally’ when speaking about Zelensky.

'You should have ended it – three years, you should have never started it,' he said, appearing to blame Zelensky for Russia's 2022 invasion.

Trump offered a positive assessment when asked about the talks, saying he was ‘much more confident’ than before Tuesday's meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Vladimir Putin aide Yuri Ushakov. Trump said the talks were 'very good.'

‘Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism,’ Trump said, amid reports it had launched new drone attacks on Kyiv after the talks ended.

Speaking to reporters, Trump was asked if he would accept Russia's push for new elections in Ukraine – amid fears that the Kremlin would install a pro-Moscow puppet regime. Trump indicated that he himself was for the idea.

'We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine – I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4 per cent approval rating, and where a country has been blown to smithereens.'

Then Trump described some of the massive destruction in Ukraine, suggesting Moscow could have imposed even more if it wished.

'You got most of the cities are laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed. It looks like a massive demolition site. The whole – I mean, so many of the cities, I mean, they haven't done it in Kyiv because, I guess they don't want to shoot too many rockets in there. They've done it 20% but they haven't done it 100%. If they wanted to do it 100% it would probably happen very quickly, but you have cities that are absolutely decimated.

'And, yeah, I would say that, you know, they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to, wouldn't the people of Ukraine have to say, like, you know, it's been a long time since we've had an election?

'That's not a Russia thing. That's something coming from me and coming from many other countries also,' Trump said.
...

I don't think Trump is for a puppet regime in Ukraine, but he would like to see them have real elections.  Russia went to war with Ukraine because it feared that the country would join NATO.   I don't think Trump would support Ukraine joining NATO at this point.  The best outcome would probably be a neutral Ukraine after new elections.

See also:

Kiev mulling terrorist attacks to disrupt peace talks – Russian intel

Moscow’s diplomatic missions in Germany, the Baltic states, and Nordic nations are the most likely targets, according to the SVR

This is apparently the Russian view. 

And:

Rubio Accuses Zelensky of Misleading the U.S. on Rare Earth Minerals Deal

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