Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted after his hours-long Alaska summit with President Donald Trump that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 likely would never have happened if Trump had been in office. The Russian leader used the moment to contrast Trump’s strength with Joe Biden’s weakness — and to inject flattery aimed at currying favor with the U.S. president.
“I’d like to remind you that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities,” Putin said. “That’s a big mistake today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there will be no war — and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be, so I can confirm that.”
? BREAKING: Putin CONFIRMS he would not have invaded Ukraine in 2022 if Trump were in office instead of Biden.
“President Trump said that if he was the President back then, there will be no war … I can confirm that.”
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 15, 2025
Trained in psychological influence during his KGB years, Putin has long been known to mix charm with manipulation when dealing with foreign leaders. He praised his rapport with Trump as “business-like,” while making clear his preference for the current administration over Biden’s.
Trump, however, did not directly echo the point during his press conference. While he called Putin’s remarks “profound,” he carefully shifted attention back to substance, reminding the Russian leader that the United States would not resume economic cooperation with Moscow until the war in Ukraine is resolved. “We … have some tremendous Russian business representatives here, and I think everybody wants to deal with us. We’ve become the hottest country anywhere in the world in a very short period of time,” Trump said. “We look forward to dealing — we’re going to try and get this over with. … We’ll have a good chance when this is over.”
Still, in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity after the summit, Trump acknowledged he was pleased to hear Putin openly state that his presidency would have deterred the war. “I was very happy to hear him say, if I was president, that war would have never happened,” Trump said. “It was stupid … Biden was a terrible president in so many ways. He should have never let it happen.”
Behind closed doors, Trump revealed, Putin went even further. The Russian leader blamed Biden’s victory on fraudulent mail-in voting and insisted the 2020 election was “rigged.” According to Trump, Putin told him, “No country has mail-in voting. It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections. You won that election by so much. You lost it because of mail-in voting.”
Trump declined to reveal the full reasoning Putin provided for why he launched the invasion under Biden’s watch but made clear his view: “It doesn’t matter at this point, but this war should never have happened. I know the reason — it’s gross incompetence.”
The exchange highlighted both Putin’s attempt to flatter and divide, and Trump’s insistence on using America’s economic strength as leverage to end the war. While Biden enabled the disaster, Trump positioned himself as the only leader with both the credibility and will to stop it.
The post Putin Admits He Wouldn’t Have Invaded Ukraine If Biden Hadn’t Been President appeared first on Real News Now.
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