Trump links oil drilling to halting Russia-Ukraine war at Mount Vernon event

US President Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump spoke at the American Cornerstone Institute's Founders Dinner at Mount Vernon, where he connected oil drilling with prospects of halting the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

"... That (oil drilling) will automatically stop the war with Russia and Ukraine; you get the prices down a little bit more, that's got to stop it. I am very disappointed in President Putin. Anywhere between 5000-7000 people are dying every week..." Trump said.

Reiterating his criticism of Moscow, Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin "let me down" for not stopping the war with Ukraine during his state visit to Britain.

"He has let me down. I mean, he's killing many people and he's losing more people than he's, you know, than he's killing. I mean, frankly, Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers," Trump said at a press conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Expanding on his position, Trump confessed that even though he thought that the Russia-Ukraine war would be the "easiest" one to solve, it was not the case.

Further, he insisted that the war in Ukraine would not have begun if he had remained in the White House. "This was a thing that would have never happened had I been president. If I were president, it would have never happened. And it didn't happen for four years," Trump asserted. "Most people agree it didn't happen, nor was it close to happening."

Trump also referred to his past diplomatic outreach, noting that despite a summit between him and Putin at Alaska, during which he urged the Russian president to hold talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, a peace deal did not materialise.

The conflict has continued since then. In February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, aiming to "demilitarize and denazify" the country, according to President Vladimir Putin.

The Russia-Ukraine war is an ongoing conflict that started in 2014 and escalated into a full-scale war in February 2022. The conflict began with Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by support for separatist movements in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.

Since then, Ukraine has launched counteroffensives, notably in the south and northeast, reclaiming territory. Russia has captured key areas like Mariupol and made gains in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In August 2024, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russia's Kursk Oblast, capturing territory and prisoners.