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United States President Donald Trump has blamed Ukraine for “starting” the three-year-old war with neighbouring Russia.
Trump spoke as talks between the US and Russia over the war in Ukraine kicked off in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
Marco Rubio, US secretary of state; Steve Witkoff, Middle East special envoy; and Mike Waltz, national security adviser, represented the US.
Yuri Ushakov, Russian presidential aide, and Sergey Larov, foreign minister, stood for the Kremlin.
Ukraine and other European leaders were conspicuously absent at the table.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that he would “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine”.
Asked if Ukrainians might feel betrayed by the exclusion, Trump waved it off.
“I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat. Well, they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily,” he said.
“You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he later added.
“I could have made a deal for Ukraine.
“That would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land — and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished.”
Trump said he was “much more confident” after the meeting in Riyadh.
“They were very good,” he said, referring to Russia.
“Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism.
“I think I have the power to end this war,” he added.
The talks are an outcome of a phone call between Trump and Putin last week, a discussion the US president said was “very long and productive”.
The negotiations have also triggered an emergency meeting in Paris involving European leaders who have expressed shock at the US’ cozy warm-up to Russia.
French President Emmanuel Macron held an “informal” meeting with “the heads of government of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and the Secretary General of NATO”.
Many European leaders fear that the US president could hand concessions to Russia and Europe’s security architecture, given that the US is a NATO member.
The US has baulked at Ukraine’s desire to join the military alliance.
