Former U.S. President Donald Trump said during the 2024 presidential debate on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if he had remained in office.

“If we had a real president — a president that was respected by Putin — he would have never invaded Ukraine,” Trump said. 

“A lot of people are dead right now, much more than people know. They talk about numbers. You can double those numbers, maybe triple those numbers,” Trump said of the casualties from the Ukraine war. 

“In fact, I think he encouraged Russia from going in,” Trump continued. “I’ll tell you what happened. He was so bad with Afghanistan, it was such a horrible embarrassment — the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country — that when Putin watched that, and he saw the incompetence — he should have fired those generals like I fired the one that you mentioned, so he’s got no love lost.”

This was a sarcastic aside to Biden for his earlier criticism about Trump having a tempestuous relationship with his defense secretary, Gen. Jim Mattis.

“No general got fired for the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, Afghanistan,” Trump continued. “Where we left billions of dollars of equipment behind, we lost 13 beautiful soldiers, and 38 soldiers were obliterated. And by the way, we left people behind too. We left American citizens behind.”

“When Putin saw that, he said, ‘You know what? I think we’re going to go in,’” Trump said. “This was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream. The difference is, he never would have invaded Ukraine, ever, just like Israel never would have been invaded in a million years by Hamas.”


https://dnyuz.com/2024/06/28/trump-blames-biden-for-ukraine-war-if-we-had-a-real-president-putin-would-never-have-invaded

Putin has recorded his comment