Ukraine war briefing: Trump sympathises with Russian stance against Ukraine joining Nato

Elina Valtonenforeign Minister

I think in the long term the only credible security guarantee is Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - so NATO membership essentially,

Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told Reuters in Kyiv, referring to the alliance's collective defence clause

Three years ago nobody thought that Finland would be joining NATO, or Sweden for that matter,

she said

We are very much on the same page with Trump on that, because I think we should do more, we can do more,

she said

Correcting the deficiencies will require repair assistance from outside the vessel and will take time,

director of Maritime Affairs Sanna Sonninen at Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom said in a statement

A big part of the problem is, Russia - for many, many years, long before Putin - said, ‘You could never have Nato involved with Ukraine.’ Now, they’ve said that. That’s been, like, written in stone,

Trump said

They’re actually trying to dismantle the town brick by brick

he said

They’re taking advantage. I’m the one that got, and the (NATO) secretary general was here two weeks ago, saying that if it weren’t for me, NATO wouldn’t even exist right now. Because I raised, from countries that weren’t paying their bills, at that time 28 countries, 20 of them were not paying their bills, 21 to be exact,

he asserted

There were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation. When I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said you’re going to end up in a war and it turned out to be a very bad war. That war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now,

he said in response to a question

They said, that’s a threatening statement. Well, they weren’t paying their bills. I said we’re not going to protect you if you’re not paying the bills. So, in a true sense, I saved NATO, but NATO has taken advantage of us. And one of the problems that I have, and I’ve said it openly, I said it to President Zelenskyy,

Trump said

NATO should have five per cent,

he said

Europe is in for a tiny fraction of the money that we’re in. Now, whether you like that situation or not, Europe is much more affected than the United States. We have a thing called the ocean in between us. Why are we in for billions and billions of dollars more money than Europe? And you know, they’re a similar size, a little smaller, but they’re a similar size economy as the United States when you add them up. And yet Europe is in for a small fraction of the number the United States is in,

he said

They weren’t paying or they were paying a very small portion, and I raised over USD 680 billion, that was the number he gave, by saying, if you don’t pay, we’re not going to protect you. As soon as I said that, the money came pouring in. But Obama could have said it, other people could have said it, Bush could have said it. Nobody said it but me. I took a lot of heat,

he said

I hope to have six months. No, I would think, I hope long before six months,

Trump said, when asked if he could solve the war within half a year

I know that Putin would like to meet,

Trump said