Did U.S. President Donald Trump say that Ukraine started the war with Russia? Yes, that's true: On February 18, 2025, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago residence, he said that Ukraine should have never started the war. That followed talks between the U.S. and Russia without the participation of Ukraine.
The statement that is the focus of this story appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published on February 18, 2025. It opened:
Donald Trump just said that Ukraine started the war. The entire world needs to refute this right now. Every single world leader needs to speak up.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Feb 20 15:12:39 2025 UTC)
and I think I have the power to end this war. And I think it's going very well. But today, I've heard, 'Oh, we were not invited..." Well, you've been there for three years. You should've ended it in three years, you should have never started it...
Earlier that day, representatives of the U.S. and Russia met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (archived here), to discuss ending the war, but no Ukrainian officials were present there.
Following the talks that excluded Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented (archive here) on the situation.
During a joint press conference with Turkish President Recep Yayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Zelenskyy said in recorded remarks at the 09:19 mark, as translated to English by DeepL:
I am convinced -- for Ukraine and for our region, for Europe, it is fundamental that any negotiations on the end of the war should not take place behind the backs [of the] key actors who are affected by the consequences of Russian aggression.
At the 10:05 mark, he continued:
We must not make any mistakes. This is possible only when the negotiations are fair, and Ukraine, and America and the whole Europe are represented at the negotiating table, and the guarantees are developed...
The first stage of the Russian-Ukrainian war began in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea (archived here).
In the early hours of February 24, 2022, local time, the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Even Vladimir Putin did not deny it. On that day, he announced (archived here) in a televised address that he had authorized what he described as a "special military operation" against Ukraine.
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Lead Stories has debunked many claims concerning the war in Ukraine. Those articles can be found here.
Stories on claims mentioning Donald Trump are here.
