Trump suggests Biden's alleged support for Ukraine's NATO membership led to full-scale invasion

Former US President Donald Trump said on June 20 that the possibility of NATO expansion in Ukraine was “really why this (large-scale) war started” and blamed the president's alleged support Joe Biden on Ukraine's accession as a trigger for the invasion.

Speaking on a podcast hosted by David Sacks, an entrepreneur and frequent critic of US policy towards Ukraine, Trump said: “For 20 years I've been hearing that if Ukraine gets into NATO, it will will be a real problem for Russia. »

“And I think that’s really why this war started.”

Trump added that Biden was “saying all the wrong things (about Ukraine),” namely that “Ukraine would enter NATO.”

Biden's record on Ukraine's membership in NATO before the full-scale war was mixed, and he has not directly stated his support for Ukraine's membership in the alliance in the short term. term.

Speaking in June 2021, Biden said: “School is out on this issue (of Ukraine's NATO membership). That remains to be seen. »

In December of that year, as tensions rose and Russian troops massed at the border, Biden reportedly said that “the decision on Ukraine's membership in NATO is the decision of the Ukrainian people alone, it is a sovereign and independent Ukrainian state,” according to Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office.

In the podcast, Sacks also claimed, without citing evidence, that “the month before the Russian invasion, (Secretary of State Antony) Blinken told (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov that the administration ( Biden) wasn't just going to bring Ukraine into his country. NATO, but believed the United States could plant nuclear weapons in Ukraine.”

Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, wrote on in Ukraine “.

“Is there any evidence to support this claim? I've never seen any.”

Sacks, who has no specific expertise on Russia or Ukraine and is primarily known in the United States as an investor in technology companies, has previously made misleading or unsubstantiated statements about Ukraine.

In December 2023, Sacks wrote on X: “Has a US Army General Taken De Facto Control of the Ukrainian Army? Sacks cited a New York Times (NYT) article that said the Pentagon had sent U.S. Lt. Gen. Antonio Aguto Jr. to “spend extended periods in kyiv” and “work more directly with the country's military leadership.”

Both Sacks and Trump made several other misleading comments about Ukraine on the podcast.

Without citing evidence, Trump claimed that Ukraine “wants to use children (and) elderly people” to fight in the army.

As in many armies around the world, the minimum age to join the Ukrainian army is 18 years old. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a controversial measure in April that lowered the minimum age for military conscription from 27 to 25. calls for further lowering the minimum conscription age.

Trump also said that Russia “doesn't want to have (NATO) soldiers right on its border,” refusing to mention that Russia already bordered four NATO countries before the full-scale invasion: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Russia's border with NATO expanded significantly after Finland joined the alliance in April 2023, which it had resisted before 2022.