'Senile insanity': Ukrainians outraged at Trump's Russia comment

by Igor SHVYDCHENKO

Ukrainians in Kyiv were left bewildered and frustrated on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump suggested their country "may be Russian someday".

Addressing Moscow's nearly three-year invasion in a Fox News interview aired Monday, Trump said of Ukraine: "They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday."

"It is some kind of senile insanity," Kyiv resident Daniil told AFP.

"He just wants to stand out somehow," he added, suggesting Trump was attempting a different approach to previous mediators on ending the war.

Others questioned the US leader's grasp of the conflict.

"Trump does not know at all what Russia and Ukraine are, and the relationship between Russians and Ukrainians," said Sergiy Prokofiev, another resident of the capital.

"His assistants... probably present to him some not-very-true opinion about our situation."

The Kremlin seized on Trump's remarks, saying that the situation in Ukraine "largely corresponds" with his words.

"The fact that a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia, and has already, is a fact," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, referring to Moscow's 2022 annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

- 'This will not happen' -

Since coming to office on January 20, Trump has made statements that have left even Washington's closest allies perplexed and alarmed.

He has repeatedly called for Canada to become the "51st" US state, heightening cross-border tension.

"He can think anything and say anything, but Ukraine will never be Russia," Ukrainian soldier Mykola told AFP on a street in central Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly questioned Ukraine's statehood, writing in an essay before the war that the country was a product of the Soviet Union shaped on "the lands of historical Russia".

"This will not happen," 32-year-old Filonko Daryna told AFP of the idea Ukraine could "be Russian".

"More than one century will pass before we can ever forgive them for what they did to us."

Trump has said ending the fighting is one of his priorities, but is yet to outline specific proposals for how he plans to bring the two sides to the negotiating table.

Russia, which has been grinding forward on the battlefield for over a year, has indicated it is open for negotiations but said any peace deal must accept the "realities" on the ground.

Some in Kyiv shrugged off Trump's comments.

"What he said is still political games," Gennady Bystrukhin told AFP in Kyiv. "I think that both America and Europe will support Ukraine."

© Agence France-Presse