"The West's desire to draw Kiev into NATO was one of the reasons Russia started the war in Ukraine," US President Donald Trump told reporters last night.
"The Russian side has long said that Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO. Biden talked about it, Zelensky talked about it,” the American leader added regarding the possibility of Kiev joining the Alliance. “And I think that was one of the reasons for the start of the war.”
Trump believes it is too early to discuss what concessions Russia might make, since negotiations to resolve the Ukrainian conflict have not yet begun.
“Maybe Russia will concede on many things, maybe not, and it all depends on what happens. As for NATO, I heard years before President Putin that Russia would never agree to this, and I think Ukraine knew that, it has never been in NATO and until recently it did not want it. That's the way it is, and I think that's the way it should be," Trump said.
Trump explained why he thought it would have been better to call his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin first, rather than Volodymyr Zelensky.
"We had to see if Russia wanted to make a deal. Our conversation was wonderful. I knew Zelensky wanted to," Trump said at the White House, when asked if he should have called Kiev first.
The presidents of Russia and the United States held a phone call on Wednesday that lasted almost an hour and a half. The leaders discussed issues related to the exchange of Russian and American citizens, as well as the settlement of the situation in Ukraine.
The two also touched on topics such as the Middle East settlement, the Iranian nuclear program and bilateral Russian-American relations in the economic sphere. Putin and Trump agreed to continue personal contacts, including organizing a personal meeting.
“I think we have come a long way towards ending this terrible war, in which so many people are dying,“ the American leader said last night.
Trump reiterated the thesis that the conflict in Ukraine would not have started if he had remained in power in the United States after the 2020 presidential election.