Trump links war in Ukraine to Russia’s exclusion from G8
Photo: Donald Trump, US President (Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump believes that if Russia had remained in the G8, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided, the US leader made this statement while speaking with journalists.
Trump complained that former US President Barack Obama and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not want to keep Russia in the G8 after it occupied Crimea.
"And I would say that was a mistake, because I think there wouldn't be a war right now if you had Russia in. And you wouldn't have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago. But that didn’t work out that way," the US president said.
According to him, the West spends so much time talking about Russia, yet it is "no longer at the (negotiating) table."
Trump wants to bring Russia back into the G7
Russia was excluded from the G8 in June 2014 in response to the occupation of Crimea. At the time, the G8 summit was scheduled to take place in Sochi, but the leaders of the other seven countries, the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, refused to attend the meeting.
The American leader has repeatedly claimed that Russia’s exclusion was supposedly a mistake. He has also insisted on the need to bring Russia back into the G7, which would effectively restore the G8 format.
Trump also recently sarcastically called the decision to expel Russia from the G8 "brilliant."
