Trump insists Ukraine crisis would not have happened while he was president: ‘I know Putin very well’

Former president had been silent about Ukraine in recent weeks

Former president Donald Trump broke his silence about the crisis in Ukraine to slam the Biden administration, saying Moscow’s decision send troops across its border would not have happened during his administration since he knows Russian President Vladimir Putin well.

“I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump Administration what he is doing now, no way!” Mr Trump said in a statement from his Save America PAC. Mr Trump faulted President Joe Biden for letting Russia become rich because of higher gas prices.

“The weak sanctions are insignificant relative to taking over a country and a massive piece of strategically located land,” he said.

“Now it has begun, oil prices are going higher and higher, and Putin is not only getting what he always wanted, but getting, because of the oil and gas surge, richer and richer.”

Mr Trump had been largely quiet for the past three weeks when it came to Ukraine. He last mentioned Ukraine during a rally in Texas in relation to immigration.

“Everyone in Washington is obsessing over how to protect Ukraine’s border — but the most important border in the world is not Ukraine’s border, it’s America’s border but let people come in and we have no idea who they are,” he told a crowd in Conroe. “The first duty of the American president is to defend the American border.”

Prior to the rally in Texas, the only thing he had said was simply “What’s happening with Russia and Ukraine would never have happened under the Trump Administration,” and that it was “Not even a possibility!”

The former president has a sordid history when it comes to Ukraine. The House of Representatives, which had a Democratic majority at the time, impeached him after a transcript from phone call with then-newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed that he had tried to make the country investigate Mr Biden’s son Hunter as condition for providing military aid to Ukraine.

The Senate, which had a Republican majority at the time, eventually acquitted Mr Trump. Sen Mitt Romney of Utah was the only Republican who voted to convict Mr Trump.

The former US president was criticised for his seemingly subordinate relationship to Mr Putin during his term in office. At a press conference in Helsinki, Finland in 2018 Mr Trump even publicly sided with the Russian leader over his own intelligence services on the subject of Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.

The Mueller Report into links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin found that it welcomed help from Russia although the report said there was not enough evidence of a formal conspiracy. Robert Mueller also identified up to 11 occasions when Mr Trump may have tried to obstruct justice by interfering in his investigation.