Former President Donald Trump said in an interview Tuesday that he was “surprised” Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine, having thought the threat of an attack was a negotiating ploy.
“I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “I thought it was a tough way to negotiate, but a smart way to negotiate.”
“I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,” the 45th president added in the phone interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Donald Trump praised Putin just before the invasion as “savvy” and a “genius.” Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images
An explosion in Kyiv early Thursday, February 24. © ROPI via ZUMA Press“And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed,” Trump said of the Russian leader.
The former president, who has repeatedly insisted that Russia would not have launched its invasion if he were still in the White House, defended himself against criticism from lawmakers, including some Republicans, for praising Putin just before the invasion as “savvy” and a “genius.”
“I’ve been very, very tough on Putin. I get a bad rap on that,” Trump said. “At the same time, I got along with him very well. But I got along with most [world leaders] very well.”
A crate filled with mortars during combat near Kyiv. Ukrainian Military TV/Handout via REUTERS
Traffic jams are seen as people leave the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti
Russian invasion of Ukraine as of March 15, 2022.
Donald Trump thought Putin’s threat of an attack was a negotiating ploy. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty ImagesTrump slapped sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would have delivered natural gas directly to Germany from Russia via a pipeline under the Baltic Sea — sanctions that President Biden removed last year, then reinstated as Putin was massing more than 190,000 troops along the Ukrainian border.
“When you think of it, who was tougher on Russia than me?” Trump asked, noting that “I got billions and billions of dollars” for the alliance.
“Now, all that money is going against Russia, so I did that. I closed the pipeline. You know, the pipeline was closed, and Biden opened it. Plus, I did the biggest sanctions anybody’s ever done on Russia.”
Ukraine soldiers inspect the rubble of a destroyed apartment building in Kyiv on March 15, 2022. FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
A woman cleans debris from her apartment inside a residential building after it was hit by shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 15, 2022. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
Firefighters work on a fire in a building after bombings in the eastern Ukraine town of Chuguiv on February 24, 2022. ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images“I’ve been very critical of Putin from the standpoint of the pipeline, from the standpoint of raising billions and billions of dollars in NATO to protect, primarily, Europe against Russia,” Trump said. “Nobody else did that.”
The House voted to impeach Trump over a July 2019 phone call in which he asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for $391 million in military aid.
The Senate acquitted him in February 2020.
