Trump takes victim-blaming Ukraine to the next level

President Donald Trump on Tuesday returned to his tactic of blaming Ukraine for Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of the nation. Trump’s latest edition of his blame game comes as his recent attempts to negotiate an end to the war have foundered.

“It’s not a war that should have been started. You don’t do that—you don’t take on a nation that’s 10 times your size,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” widely understood to be his favorite show on the right-wing network.

Russia chose to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty in 2022, in a repeat of their seizure of Crimea in 2014. Ukraine responded to the invasion by defending their nation, a response that virtually all nations in the world—including the United States—would pursue in a similar situation.

Since the conflict began, Ukraine estimates that more than 46,000 of their soldiers have been killed, as of February. A United Nations report published in December 2024 estimated that more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the conflict as well.

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Trump’s rhetoric, beyond insulting Ukraine’s resistance, also denigrates the American war of independence, which saw our small nation taking on what at the time was a global superpower with a large military.

Trump also told Fox that he had given “my assurance” that no Americans would be deployed to defend Ukraine against further Russian aggression if a peace deal is ever agreed upon.

The Fox News appearance comes after a pair of high-level foreign policy meetings between Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (along with a host of European leaders backing Zelenskyy). Trump failed to secure an agreement to end the war despite repeatedly boasting as he campaigned for the presidency that he would solve the issue on his first day in office.

Instead the world has watched as Trump caved to Putin’s demands and pushed Zelenskyy to give in to continued Russian brutality.

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Trump even told the Fox News hosts that his widely criticized phone call with Putin that occurred while he spoke to European leaders happened in private because he feared it would be “disrespectful to President Putin.”

In the aftermath of his diplomatic failures, Trump has once again emerged as a shill for Putin. He has time and again lied about the underlying causes of the war, blaming Ukraine when Russia is at fault.

Trump’s rhetoric bolsters the case of Putin, whom a bipartisan Senate investigation determined was working on Trump’s behalf to intervene in the 2016 presidential election. Trump continues to repay his major political ally.

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