Trump again accuses Ukraine of starting war with Russia

US President Donald Trump has again repeated the lie that Ukraine started the ongoing war.

In an interaction with the press at the White House, Trump on Monday said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy started the ongoing war with Russia.

“He’s [Zelenskyy] always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” said Trump.

Separately, Trump said in a post on Truth Social, “President Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting.”

Trump has fully turned on Zelenskyy: "He's always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles." pic.twitter.com/1hBWeyu2hg

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2025

This is not the first time that Trump has falsely absolved Russia of blame for starting the ongoing war with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He has previously blamed Zelenskyy, previous US President Joe Biden, and the Western military alliance Nato for starting the war. These are of course lies.

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time in a decade. President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion, which he dubbed ‘special military operation’, in a special broadcast. Previously, Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014 and captured and annexed the region of Crimea that it continues to illegally occupy till date.

ALSO READ: From Russian invasion to Zelenskyy’s election, Trump rewrites Ukraine war’s history with lies

While Trump had always been friendly with Putin and a critic of support to Ukraine, he has completely aligned himself with Russia in his second term. While he has repeatedly pressured Ukraine into making concessions after concessions, such as entering ceasefires beneficial to Russia, ceding territory, and ceding control of natural resources to the United States, he has done nothing to pressure Russia.

Previously, Trump has called Zelenskyy a “dictator” ruling Ukraine without elections and has essentially called for his ouster. The covert engagement of the Trump administration with Zelenskyy’s domestic rivals was seen as a sign of Trump’s attempts at a regime change in Ukraine.

Trump has also falsely claimed that the United States has provided $350 billion in aid so far. As of Sept. 2024, the US allocations stood around $183 billion, out of which only $86.7 billion had been disbursed, according to data with the US inspector general overseeing the US response to the situation in Ukraine carried by CNN.

In February, as part of his vilification campaign against Zelenskyy, Trump claimed that Zelenskyy refused to meet Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent when he visited the country. Trump said that Zelenskyy did not meet Bessent as he was sleeping. That is of course a lie. Zelenskyy met Bessent and photos of their meeting were posted on X from official accounts.