Former US President and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for initiating a prolonged war with Russia over two years ago.

Trump, as a vocal critic of Zelensky since the onset of Kiev-Moscow war in 2022, said in an interview with US media on Thursday that the Ukrainian leader was to blame not just for failing to end the conflict but for helping start it.

“I think Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen I’ve ever seen,” Trump told the PBD Podcast, hinting at billions of dollars worth of Western military aid Kiev has received to counter Russia over the past two and a half years.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him because I feel very badly for those people. But he should never have let that war start. The war’s a loser.”

Trump slammed Zelensky for failing to seek peace with Moscow and suggested that Ukraine may have to cede some of its lands to Russia to make a peace deal, a concession Kiev has adamantly dismissed as unacceptable.

The US Republican nominee also said he “largely blames” incumbent US President Joe Biden for the Ukraine-Russia war, stressing that he “instigated that war.”

In a sharp rebuke of Biden, he added, “This should’ve been settled before it started. It would’ve been so easy. If we had a president with half a brain, it would’ve been easy to settle.”

Trump’s comments imply that he is likely to radically shift US policy toward Ukraine if he wins the November 5 election.

Trump has previously stated that if he had still been in the White House, the Ukraine-Russia war would never have started, claiming, “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin never ever would have gone into Ukraine if I were president.”

The United States has been Ukraine’s biggest backer since the war broke out, providing military aid worth upwards of $56 billion.

Russia launched its military campaign in Ukraine’s Donbas in February 2022 after several years of international negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Since the war started, Western countries have been backing Zelensky with vast diplomatic and financial support, providing Kiev forces with huge shipments of arms and munitions despite repeated warnings by the Kremlin that pursuing such a policy would only prolong the war and add to the misery and destruction.