WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump resumed his attempts Monday to blame Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths.
Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelensky six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden.
The Republican told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.”
“Let’s say Putin number one, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky,” Trump said during a meeting with the visiting president of El Salvador.
Trump then doubled down on his attack on Zelensky.
“He’s always looking to purchase missiles,” he said dismissively of the Ukrainian leader’s attempts to maintain his country’s defense against the Russian invasion.
“When you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war,” Trump said. “You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size, and then hope that people give you some missiles.”
Relations between Trump and Zelensky have been tense ever since the US president stunned the world by opening talks with Russia in February.
In the run-up to their televised row on February 28 Trump repeatedly echoed Moscow’s talking points — blaming Ukraine for the war and calling Zelensky a “dictator without elections.”
Zelensky has since tried to patch things up, including sending a delegation to Washington last week to discuss a mineral deal Trump has called for, that would give the US preferential access to Ukrainian natural resources.
But the US leader has stepped up his rhetoric in the last few days.
Trump however insisted a deal to end the Ukraine war was possible, despite Ukrainian accusations that Moscow is stalling.
“I want to stop the killing, and I think we’re doing well in that regard. I think you’ll have some very good proposals very soon,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments came despite a deadly Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday that killed at least 35 people, one of the deadliest attacks of the war.
The US president said on Sunday that the attack was a “mistake” but did not elaborate. Russia insisted Monday that its missiles hit a meeting of Ukrainian army commanders.
Zelensky urged US counterpart Donald Trump in a CBS interview broadcast Sunday to visit his country to better understand the devastation wrought by Russia’s invasion.
Trump blames Zelensky for ‘millions’ of deaths in Russian invasion
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Trump blames Zelensky for ‘millions’ of deaths in Russian invasion
- Donald Trump: ‘Let’s say Putin number one, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky’
- Trump: ‘You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size, and then hope that people give you some missiles’
Trump sues the BBC for defamation over editing of January 6 speech, seeks up to $10 billion in damages
- A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point
- The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught
WASHING: President Donald Trump sued the BBC on Monday for defamation over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capitol, opening an international front in his fight against media coverage he deems untrue or unfair. Trump accused Britain’s publicly owned broadcaster of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021 speech, including one section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol and another where he said “fight like hell.” It omitted a section in which he called for peaceful protest.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law that bars deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the lawsuit’s two counts. The BBC has apologized to Trump, admitted an error of judgment and acknowledged that the edit gave the mistaken impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. But it has said there is no legal basis to sue.
Trump, in his lawsuit filed Monday in Miami federal court, said the BBC despite its apology “has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement the BBC “has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda.”
A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed.
CRISIS LED TO RESIGNATIONS
Facing one of the biggest crises in its 103-year history, the BBC has said it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.
The dispute over the clip, featured on the BBC’s “Panorama” documentary show shortly before the 2024 presidential election, sparked a public relations crisis for the broadcaster, leading to the resignations of its two most senior officials.
Trump’s lawyers say the BBC caused him overwhelming reputational and financial harm.
The documentary drew scrutiny after the leak of a BBC memo by an external standards adviser that raised concerns about how it was edited, part of a wider investigation of political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.
The documentary was not broadcast in the United States.
Trump may have sued in the US because defamation claims in Britain must be brought within a year of publication, a window that has closed for the “Panorama” episode.
To overcome the US Constitution’s legal protections for free speech and the press, Trump will need to prove not only that the edit was false and defamatory but also that the BBC knowingly misled viewers or acted recklessly.
The broadcaster could argue that the documentary was substantially true and its editing decisions did not create a false impression, legal experts said. It could also claim the program did not damage Trump’s reputation.
Other media have settled with Trump, including CBS and ABC when Trump sued them following his comeback win in the November 2024 election.
Trump has filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and a newspaper in Iowa, all three of which have denied wrongdoing. The attack on the US Capitol in January 2021 was aimed at blocking Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win over Trump in the 2020 US election.
