Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump sympathises with Putin’s stance on Nato as Kursk battle rages
Donald Trump says he sympathises with Vladimir Putin’s position that Ukraine should not be part of Nato, incorrectly accusing Joe Biden of changing US policy on the issue.
“A big part of the problem is, Russia – for many, many years, long before Putin – said, ‘You could never have Nato involved with Ukraine.’ Now, they’ve said that. That’s been, like, written in stone,” Mr Trump said, speaking at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.
“And somewhere along the line Biden said, ‘No. They should be able to join Nato’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that.”
Nato’s official position since 2008 has been that Ukraine should work towards membership, and that remains the case. No new invitation to join Nato has been offered, despite calls from Kyiv for the alliance to do so.
On the battlefront, Ukraine said its forces were “commencing new offensive actions” in Russia’s western Kursk region, finally confirming the renewed assault first reported over the weekend.
And in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv said it was still clinging on to part of Kurakhove, a strategic town that Russia claims to have captured.
