Trump predicts Russia's collapse, criticizes Zelenskyy at same time
US President Donald Trump said that if Putin tries to seize all of Ukraine, it will lead to the fall of Russia, as he reported on his own social network Truth Social late on Sunday evening.
"I’ve always said that he [Putin] wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
However, in the following lines of the post, Trump also criticized Zelenskyy, saying that the Ukrainian president "is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does."
"Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop," Trump wrote.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly responded to Russia's overnight attack on Ukraine on Sunday night, saying that the silence of the United States and the rest of the world "only encourages Vladimir Putin to keep killing every day."
Later on Sunday, Trump, speaking to reporters on a runway in Morristown, New Jersey, said he would "absolutely" consider using tariffs on Russia to force it to make progress in peace talks and that he did not know "what the hell happened to Putin." "I've known him for a long time. I've always gotten along with him, but he's sending missiles into cities and killing people, and I don't like that at all. We're in the middle of talking, and he's shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities. I don't like it at all," Trump told reporters.