Donald Trump hinted at the possibility of World War III during a press conference alongside UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer today (Thursday 18 September).
Speaking from Chequers amid his ongoing state visit, the US president called out Vladimir Putin and said: “He has let me down. I mean, he’s killing many people and he’s losing more people than he’s, you know, than he’s killing."
The Republican leader added: "I mean, frankly, Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers. But, yeah, he’s let me down.
"If I were president, it would have never happened, and it didn’t happen for four years. People, most people, agree. It didn’t happen, nor was it close to happening."
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Trump continued: “I spoke to president Putin about Ukraine, it was the apple of his eye. I’ve said that many times, it was, but he would have never done what he did, except that he didn’t respect the leadership of the United States.”
And he later added: “Millions of people have died in that war, millions of souls, and they’re not American, they’re soldiers, mostly soldiers, as you know, the soldiers are being killed at levels nobody’s seen since the Second World War.
“But they’re being killed and I feel I have an obligation to get it settled for that reason.”
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Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and almost four years of war and followed, with no end in sight, despite Trump attempting to reason with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an effort broker a peace deal.
Trump reportedly suggested that he expected the Ukraine-Russia war to be 'among the easiest' to resolve, but now he has admitted that was not the case and thinks it could potentially spill out into a wider conflict.
According to The Sun, speaking of whether it could affect the US, the president said: "Unless you end up in a world war over this thing - it could. That's a war that could have been a Third World War.
"I don't think we are going to be there now - but that was heading to a Third World War."
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He also suggested: "If the price of oil drops Putin's going to drop out of that war. If the oil price comes down Russia will settle."
Asked whether it was a mistake to invite the Russian president to Alaska and if he regrets it, Trump replied: “No.”
While Starmer added: "There are a number of European countries which are too reliant on energy from Russia, the UK actually, obviously, has almost got nothing at all, but we do need to bear down and work with our European counterparts here.
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“There are one or two countries, I think, that do need to look again at the question of energy.
He continued: “There’s no one silver bullet here, we do have to have a wider suite of sanctions, which we’ve put in place a number of times, working across Europe and with the United States.”
Topics: Donald Trump, Keir Starmer, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, Russia
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Madison Burgess