Putin Says Ukraine War Would Not Have Started If Trump Were President

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a striking admission Friday during his joint press conference with Donald Trump in Alaska: the war in Ukraine, he said, would never have begun had Trump been in office in 2022 instead of Joe Biden.

Putin, standing beside Trump after a three-hour private meeting with top advisers, directly tied the outbreak of war to America’s leadership. “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 through a translator. “And I said it quite directly back then that it’s a big mistake.”

The Russian leader then went further, aligning with Trump’s long-held claim. “Today, when President Trump 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,” he declared.

For years, Trump has argued that his leadership style—rooted in strength, unpredictability, and direct negotiation—would have prevented the conflict. Speaking at a CNN town hall in May 2023, he put it plainly: “If I were president, this would have never happened, and even the Democrats admit that. Putin knew it would have never happened, and his pipeline would have never happened. A lot of things would have never happened.” He didn’t stop there, underscoring the tragic cost of weak leadership: “All those dead people, both Russian and Ukrainian… they wouldn’t be dead today, and all those cities that are blown up and disintegrated right to the ground, that wouldn’t have happened.”

Putin himself drew a sharp contrast between his dealings with Biden’s White House—distant, unproductive, and dismissive—and his relationship with Trump, which he described as rooted in mutual respect and seriousness. “I think that overall, me and President Trump have built a very good business-like and trustworthy contact, and have every reason to believe that moving down this path, we can come and the sooner the better to the end of the conflict in Ukraine,” Putin said.

What’s remarkable here is not only that a foreign adversary openly confirmed Trump’s point, but that it shines a light on how global stability is directly tied to America’s leadership. Under Biden, the United States has been defined by bureaucratic indecision, foreign policy blunders, and unchecked taxpayer spending on endless conflict. Under Trump, the approach was clearer: strength first, negotiations rooted in common sense, and a focus on avoiding unnecessary wars that drain lives and resources.

This moment in Alaska underscores a lesson history repeatedly teaches: peace is preserved not by weakness, but by deterrence. World leaders act differently when America projects confidence. When leadership falters, chaos fills the vacuum—and ordinary people, both here and abroad, pay the highest price.