Desk Report:
US President Donald Trump has claimed that Putin betrayed him in the process of resolving the Ukraine war. He is disappointed with Putin’s behavior. After Trump’s comments, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also criticized Putin. He said that Putin has shown his ‘true face’ by carrying out the biggest attack on Ukraine even amid ongoing negotiations.
At a joint press conference with Starmer at Chequers on Thursday (September 18), Trump admitted that he thought resolving the Russia-Ukraine war would be ‘easy’. But in reality it was not. However, he insisted that he would eventually resolve the problem.
A meeting was held between Putin and Trump in Alaska last month. There, Trump called on the Russian President to sit in on talks with Volodymyr Zelensky. But Putin did not sit in on any such talks.
Trump said, ‘I thought it would be the easiest thing to stop the Russia-Ukraine war, but Putin let me down. I thought it might be the easiest thing to do. You know, we are trying to find a solution for Israel and Gaza, we are trying to find a solution for many other conflicts and we have done so. I hope we will find a solution for Israel-Gaza, and Russia and Ukraine will find a solution.’
Trump also said, ‘To be honest, more Russian soldiers are being killed in this war than Ukrainian soldiers. But yes, he (Putin) has disappointed me. He has broken his word.’
Before taking office as president, Trump claimed that he would stop the war between Moscow and Kiev in a day. Trump also said that Putin started this war in 2022 because, ‘he did not respect the American leadership’ at that time. He said, ‘If I were president, I would never have stopped this war.’
The press conference was held on the last day of the US President’s visit to the UK. At the press conference, Starmer said, ‘Putin has shown his true colors in recent days, carrying out the largest attack since the beginning of the invasion. It has led to more bloodshed, more innocent lives lost and unprecedented violations of NATO airspace. This cannot be the work of someone who wants peace.’
The two leaders also signed a major investment deal in the technology sector. Officials said the deal would create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear power. Starmer called the deal a ‘game-changing’ deal and said it was the biggest investment package in British history.
