President Donald Trump on Friday issued a none-too-veiled threat of action against Russia after Moscow’s forces pounded a Ukrainian maternity hospital, injuring nine people earlier in the day.
Speaking to reporters before departing the White House to view flood damage in Texas, where 121 have died and 170 are still missing, the president was asked about the drone attack against the civilian target.
He replied: "I know. You'll be seeing things happen."
The president’s cryptic remark came less than a day after he told NBC News that he’d be making a “major statement” on the status of the three-year-old Russia-Ukraine war this coming Monday.
In a phone interview, the president said he was “disappointed” in Russia and reiterated his recent pledge to send more weapons to Ukraine, explaining that the U.S. would be doing so through NATO allies that will purchase the weapons from American stockpiles.
“We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100%. So what we’re doing is the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons [to Ukraine], and NATO is paying for those weapons,” Trump said. “We send weapons to NATO, and NATO is going to reimburse the full cost of those weapons.”
And it also comes after a new book revealed him telling donors that he previously had warned Putin he would “bomb the s**t out of Moscow” if the Russian leader attacked Ukraine.
“With Putin I said, ‘If you go into Ukraine, I’m going to bomb the s**t out of Moscow. I’m telling you I have no choice,” Trump said in audio obtained by authors and Washington Post reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf for their new book, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.
“And then [Putin] goes, like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ But he believed me 10%,” they wrote that the president added.
Trump entered office for his second term as a strident critic of U.S. support for Ukraine and has had a rocky relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dating back to a now-infamous July 2019 phone call between the two leaders that led to the first of his two impeachment trials in the U.S. Senate.
He once ordered a halt to shipments of weapons to Kyiv after a disastrous Oval Office meeting with the Ukrainian president in March but resumed them after Republican lawmakers complained. And earlier this week he ordered the deliveries of munitions to resume after Pentagon officials went behind his back to halt shipments for what was described as a review of American weapons stockpile levels.
But his tone towards Ukraine and Russia has changed in recent weeks as U.S. efforts to broker a ceasefire in the three-year-old conflict have come to naught, a development he is understood to place at the feet of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said he was “not happy” with the Russian president, who he accused of “killing a lot of people”, including many of his own soldiers to the tune of “7,000 a week.”
Trump also told reporters there was “no reason” for Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine and complained that reaching a ceasefire in the three-year-old war Putin launched has been “tougher” than expected, while crediting Kyiv’s forces for bravery as they’ve battled back Russia’s invasion.
“I will say the Ukrainians were brave, but we gave them the best equipment ever made ... we gave them missiles, the latest and the greatest. They were able to shoot down a lot of things,” he said.
The president also acknowledged that many of his supporters might consider it “unfair” that the U.S. has spent billions for weapons bound for Ukraine while still crediting Ukrainians for exhibiting valor while using their American-made military supplies against Russia.
Continuing, Trump said that Putin, with whom he has had a relatively close relationship compared with many of America’s allies, has “thrown a lot of bulls***” at him while continuing to prosecute the war he started in 2022.
“It's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” he said.
He later added that Putin was “not treating human beings right” and is “killing too many people” in Ukraine.
Trump’s teasing of a “major announcement” comes as he is understood to be considering lending support to a bipartisan bill under debate in Congress that would impose yet more sanctions on Moscow in an effort to choke off the funds powering Putin’s war machine.
Sponsored by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, it would impose a whopping 500 percent import tax on goods imported from any nation that purchases Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports.
The effect of the punishing tariffs would be targeted against two American trading partners, China and India, because those countries account for roughly 70 percent of the Russian energy trade which bankrolls much of Moscow’s war effort.
Trump is understood to be open to supporting the sanctions legislation but is pushing for the bill to be amended to give him more power to lift and impose the sanctions at will.
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