Trump hardens stance, brands Russia aggressor
Trump's stance toward Moscow has changed over the last several months (Photo: REUTERS/Cheney Orr)
After months of avoiding accusations toward Moscow, U.S. President Donald Trump finally labeled Russia the aggressor state in the war against Ukraine, Politico reported on Sep. 15.
“8,000 soldiers have died this week, from both countries. Some more from Russia, but when you’re the aggressor, you lose more,” he said on Sep. 14, referring to Ukrainian and Russian troop casualties.
Trump had previously refused to condemn Moscow for the invasion. In February, his administration sided with Russia and North Korea in rejecting a U.N. motion that supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity and condemned Russia. Washington also objected to a G7 statement calling Russia an aggressor.
Earlier, he blamed Ukraine for the war, saying, “You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”
Trump's stance toward Moscow has changed over the last several months after his efforts to broker direct peace talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were met with a stonewall refusal from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
“I stopped seven wars, and I thought this one was going to be easy for me, but this has turned out to be tough,” Trump said, adding that Zelenskyy and Putin “hate each other. They hate each other so much they can’t breathe.”
The U.S. administration is facing increasing calls to impose harsher sanctions on Russia. On Sep. 13, Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that he planned to do so, but only after Europe stops buying Russian oil and toughens its own sanctions regime.
"They are still “buying oil from Russia. I don’t want them to buy oil. And the sanctions that they are putting on are not tough enough.”
Hungary and Slovakia, the EU’s top purchasers of Russian energy, have opposed the European Commission’s efforts to phase out Russian energy.
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