President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed any notion that he is planning a mission to capture Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that the U.S. target Putin after American forces captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in Saturday's raid in Caracas and brought him and his wife, Cilia Flores, to New York to face federal drug charges.
Zelenskyy made the remark the same day as the operation.
"Well, what can I say? If dictators can be dealt with like this, then the United States of America knows what it should do next," Zelenskyy told reporters, laughing.
Following a meeting with executives from 14 oil companies at the White House, Trump was asked by a reporter about Zelenskyy's comments and whether he would order a similar mission targeting Putin.
"Well, I don't think it's going to be necessary," Trump said in comments that aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform. "I've always had a great relationship with [Putin].
"I'm very disappointed. I settled eight wars.
"I thought this would be in the middle of the pack or maybe one of the easier ones. And I don't know if you know — the last month they lost 31,000 people, many of them Russian soldiers.
"And the Russian economy is doing poorly. I think we're going to end up getting it settled."
Trump said the conflict has dragged on longer than he expected, with mounting casualties on both sides.
"I wish we could have done it quicker because a lot of people are dying, mostly soldiers," he said.
"You know, they get hit in Kyiv and they get hit a little bit here and there. And people are dying there too.
"But largely it's the soldier population," Trump added. "When you have 30,000, 31,000 soldiers dying in a period of a month, 27,000 the month before, 26,000 the month before that — that's bad stuff."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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