President Donald Trump decried Russia’s progress in its war against Ukraine, saying Thursday that the nation should abandon its efforts.
“I’m very disappointed in Putin,” Trump said in a bilateral meeting with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday. “With all of the heavy bombardment over the last two weeks, they’ve gained almost no land. Think of that — they’ve gained almost no land. I’m not going to ever call anybody a paper tiger, but Russia spent millions and millions of dollars in bombs, missiles, ammunition and lives, and they’ve gained virtually no land. I think it’s time to stop. I really do.”
The remarks punctuated a week that has shown dramatic shifts from the president on the Russia-Ukraine war.
Earlier this week, Trump stunned Ukraine and the world when he wrote on Truth Social that he thought Ukraine could get back the land it has lost during the war. Russia currently occupies about 20% of Ukrainian territory.
“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote. “With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option.”
It was a far cry from early August, when Trump was suggesting that land swaps would be necessary to bring the war to an end — an option Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders pushed back on.
Trump’s patience with Putin and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has been on a steady decline since Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin at a bilateral meeting in Alaska.
Last week, he said Putin had “let me down,” comments he echoed on Tuesday.
“Of the seven wars that I stopped, I thought that would be the easiest because of my relationship with President Putin, which had always been a good one,” Trump said in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. “I thought that was going to be the easiest one.”
The prescient has also said he is ready to place sanctions on Russia — provided NATO allies stop purchasing Russian oil first.