Trump said this during a televised presidential debate with Joe Biden on CNN, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.
Trump accused Biden of allocating large sums of money to Ukraine. According to him, this should not have been done, and if he had been the president, Putin would not have started the war.
When asked by the presenters whether he supports Putin's statements about the conditions for ending the war, Trump replied: "No."
"If we had a real president, a president that knew that was respected by Putin, he would have never he would have never invaded Ukraine," Trump said.
According to him, the Russian war killed "much more than people know."
"They talk about numbers. You can double those numbers, maybe triple those numbers. He [Biden] did nothing to stop it. In fact, I think he encouraged Russia from going in," Trump said.
The ex-president said that Putin had decided to invade Ukraine after seeing "a horrible embarrassment, most embarrassing moment in the history of our country," when U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan, where the United States "left billions of dollars of equipment behind."
According to Trump, Biden "has given $200 billion now or more to Ukraine."
"Every time that Zelensky comes to this country, he walks away with $60 billion. He's the greatest salesman ever. I'm not knocking him, I'm not knocking anything. I'm only saying, the money that we're spending on this war, and we shouldn't be spending, it should have never happened," he said.
"I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelensky as president-elect before I take office on January 20th. I'll have that war settled. People being killed so needlessly, so stupidly, and I will get it settled and I'll get it settled fast before I take office," Trump said.
Biden, in turn, said that Putin is a war criminal.
"He's killed thousands and thousands of people. And he has made one thing clear, he wants to re-establish what was part of the Soviet Empire, not just a piece, he wants all of Ukraine. That's what he wants. And then do you think he'll stop there?" Biden said, addressing Trump.
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