Sixty-two percent of registered voters believe Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if former President Donald Trump were still in office, according to a Harvard Center for American Political Studies-Harris Poll released Friday, The Hill reports.
The survey, conducted between Feb. 23-24 with 2,026 registered voters, also found that 38% believe Putin would have attacked Ukraine anyways.
Of the 62% who said they thought the invasion wouldn't have happened under a Trump administration, 85% identified as Republicans and 38% as Democrats.
There was no reported margin of error, or a probability confidence interval reported for the poll, and The Hill said it was "an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics."
Additionally, 59% said they believe Putin acted because he sees President Joe Biden as "weak," while 41% did not see that as a factor.
In a Feb. 22 statement, Trump said the invasion would never have happened if he was still president.
"If properly handled, there was absolutely no reason that the situation currently happening in Ukraine should have happened at all," Trump’s statement said. "I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump Administration what he is doing now, no way!"
The former President said that Biden’s energy policies have made Russian and Putin "rich."
"Russia has become very, very, rich during the Biden Administration, with oil prices doubling and soon to be tripling and quadrupling," his statement said.
"The weak sanctions are insignificant relative to taking over a country and a massive piece of strategically located land. Now it has begun, oil prices are going higher and higher, and Putin is not only getting what he always wanted, but getting, because of the oil and gas surge, richer and richer. The U.S. was energy independent under the Trump Administration, an independence that we had never obtained before, and oil prices would have remained low. Now, what a mess our country is in!"
Biden announced Saturday that isanctions against Russia now include removing the country from the SWIFT international banking system.
"As Russian forces unleash their assault on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, we are resolved to continue imposing costs on Russia that will further isolate Russia from the international financial system and our economies," a statement from the White House said Saturday. "We will implement these measures within the coming days."
The statement said the new sanctions would include that "selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system. This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally."
Ukrainian officials have been calling for the measure since the invasion began.
"To some European leaders who are still hesitant: each year at commemorative events you say, ‘Never again.’ The time to prove it is now," Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said in a post on Twitter Friday. "Russia is waging a horrific war of aggression in Europe. Here is your ‘never again’ test: BAN RUSSIA FROM SWIFT and kick it out of everywhere."
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