Washington
CNN
–
President Donald Trump is lying about Ukraine.
In his remarks to a reporter on Tuesday and a social media post on Wednesday, Trump made many false claims about Ukrainian President Voldymir Zelensky’s Russian war with Ukraine.
Here are some fact-checks for his claims:
Who started the war?
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump dismissed Ukrainian complaints about exclusion from US-Russia talks to end the war, and misrepresented Ukraine. You could have made a deal. ”
Ukraine did not start a war. Russia launched the war in 2022 by invading Ukraine. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, and several Republican lawmakers, are taking a look at this obvious fact by seizing Trump’s lies.
Zelensky Approval Evaluation
In the same Tuesday statement, Trump called for a new Ukrainian election – a previously scheduled presidential election last year was cancelled due to the country being under martial law – Zelensky said, “4% approval “It’s falling in ratings.”
That 4% figure is not close to exact.
The latest survey from major Ukrainian pollers conducted earlier this month found that 57% of Ukrainians said they trusted Zelensky. This is up from 52% in December. 52% were Zelensky’s worst wartime figure in this series of trust surveys. Furthermore, approval surveys conducted from late November to early January found that 63% of Ukrainians were either fully approved or tended to approve Zelensky’s actions as president.
US wartime aid to Ukraine
In a social media post Wednesday, Trump insisted that Zelensky “talked to the United States to spend $350 billion,” insisting that he “entered” a war that he couldn’t win.
The $350 billion figure is far from reality.
According to the Kiel Institute, a German think tank that closely tracks wartime aid to Ukraine, the US totaled $124 billion in military, financial and humanitarian aid in late January 2022 to Ukraine just before Russia. I committed the Invasion and the end of December 2024. The think tank has discovered that the US has actually allocated about $119 billion.
It is possible to reach different totals using different counting methodologies, but there is no clear basis for Trump’s “$35 billion” figure. “As of September 30, 2024, Ukraine’s response funds for the US Ukraine were nearly $183 billion, with $1300.1 billion in obligations and $86.7 billion in payments,” a US government inspector overseeing Ukraine’s response, told the website. and it states that it includes funds spent. It was sent to a country other than the United States or Ukraine.
US aid vs. European aid
In both Tuesday’s remarks and Wednesday’s social media post, Trump returned to his familiar but false claims about the huge gap between the amount of Ukrainian aid provided by the US and Europe.
He said Tuesday: He wrote Wednesday: “The US spent $200 billion more than Europe.”
Neither is accurate.
In fact, data from the Kiel Institute show that Europe (the European Union and individual European countries) is a major part of the total military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine until December (approximately $258 billion) than the US committed. They were collectively committed to scale military, fiscal and humanitarian aid (approximately $124 billion). Europe also allocated more military, fiscal and humanitarian aid (approximately $138 billion) than the US was allocated (approximately $119 billion).
The US has gained a slim lead in certain categories. Military aid was allocated, providing Europe with around $67 billion to about $65 billion. But even that wasn’t where the giant Trump explained it to the Gulf Bay.
Zelensky and “missing” assistance
In a social media post Wednesday, Trump falsely claimed that Zelensky “confirms that half of the money we sent him is ‘missing’.” He made a similar claim to reporters Tuesday.
However, Zelensky has not made such entry. Rather, he has problems with his inflated claims about how much cash Ukraine has received.
He said in an interview with the Associated Press on February 1 that people have spoken about Ukraine winning $200 billion in US aid, but Ukraine is about $76 billion, mostly in the form of weapons. He stated that he received it. Zelensky said that, according to a translation of news outlet Ukrainska Pravda, he doesn’t know where all the extra money professed went, perhaps not knowing that these higher numbers are correct “on paper”.
Contrary to several virus social media posts this month, it wasn’t a confession that half of the cash the US sent to Ukraine has disappeared. The reality is that Zelensky was exactly what experts in the US and elsewhere have repeatedly pointed out. He said that the majority of the US budgetary “response” to the Ukrainian war was not in the form of money handed over to the Ukrainian government.
For example, Think Tank, an expert at the Strategic Research Center, wrote in May last year: “The concept of “assistance to Ukraine” is a misnomer. Even though images of “cash palettes” have been sent to Ukraine, about 72% of this money and 86% of military aid will be spent in the United States. The reason for this high proportion is that weapons going to Ukraine are produced in US factories, payments to US service members are primarily spent in the US, and even a portion of humanitarian assistance is spent in the US. is. ”
In a new comment to a reporter on Wednesday, Reuters said the US provided about $67 billion in weapons and $31.5 billion in budget support, Zelensky said.
This article has been updated with additional information.
