Ukraine ‘going badly’ for US – Trump
Former US President Donald Trump has suggested that things are “going badly” for the US in Ukraine, which he claimed was proven out by the fact that the media has stopped producing extensive coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Speaking at a rally in Houston, Texas on Thursday, Trump told his supporters that the “fake news media” generally doesn’t like to cover things that aren’t going well for Washington, and that this was the case with Afghanistan amid the disastrous US withdrawal from the country in 2021.
"Nobody talks about Afghanistan. Have you noticed? They don't talk about Ukraine either anymore. Because things aren't going well, and they don't talk about the things that aren't going well," Trump said.
“It’s what they don’t talk about, the fake news media, that’s almost as bad and sometimes worse than what they do talk about,” Trump said, concluding that “things are going badly, because they’re not talking about Ukraine anymore. I don’t see it. And it’s not just because of the catastrophe in Israel.”
Trump’s comments come as Kiev’s much-touted counteroffensive, which was launched back in June and widely predicted to yield a turning point in the conflict, has proven to be a complete failure, with Ukrainian forces ultimately failing to make any noteworthy territorial gains and instead suffering extensive casualties.
Following Kiev’s disappointing battlefield performance, US financial and military aid to Ukraine has now become uncertain as a growing number of Republican lawmakers have come out in opposition to sending billions of US taxpayer dollars to the country.
As admitted by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday, Ukraine would lose its fight against Russia if the US were to stop funding it. “I can guarantee that, without our support, Putin will be successful,” Austin told the senators as he tried to make the case for sending an additional $44 billion to Kiev.
Meanwhile, Ukraine itself has been suffering upsets on the battlefield, with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stating on Wednesday that “despite the supply of new kinds of NATO weapons, the Kiev regime is losing.” He stated that Kiev’s attempts to advance on the front line have remained fruitless and have only resulted in high battlefield losses and decreasing morale among its troops.
