Fact-checking Donald Trump’s claims about war in Ukraine
Claim: Zelensky is a 'dictator without elections'
Claim: 'I hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating'
Claim: 'You should have never started it'
Category President Donald Trump
PolitiFact | Did Ukraine start its war with Russia, as President Donald Trump said? No, Russia invaded
On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian forces launched an invasion on Ukraine, a country that the night before was at peace. Putin called it a "special military operation" and he premised the attack on false claims about Ukraine. As people were sleeping, Russian troops and tanks rolled into Ukraine and missiles poured down in what U.S. military analysts called the largest military operation in Europe since World War II.
The attack followed weeks of Russian maneuvers that included staging a large-scale military exercise along Russia's border with Ukraine that the U.S. estimated to include 190,000 Russian troops.
We rate the statement Pants on Fire!
Trump says Ukraine started war with Russia. What are the facts? – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
President Donald Trump this week falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war that has cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, causing outrage and alarm in a country that has spent nearly three years fighting back a much larger Russian military. [...]
Here's a look at some of Trump's statements:
Fact Check: Did JD Vance Say US ‘Military Action’ Available Against Russia?
True.
JD Vance did say that "military tools of leverage" could be used if Moscow did not cooperate with the terms of a negotiation that ended fighting between Russia and Ukraine. He did rule out U.S. deployment, saying "the president is very clear that whenever he walks into negotiation, everything is on the table."
While Vance claimed his words were "twisted," a full transcript shows he did not rule out military action.
Fact Check: Trump Says Russia Has Lost 1.5 Million Troops In Ukraine War
There are no estimates that 1.5 million Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded since Russia invaded Ukraine. Recent analyses suggest manpower losses of around 780,000 as of early January 2025. Ukrainian government estimates from February 2025 claim 850,000 Russian troop losses. While the Ukrainian government is thought to have overcounted Russian losses and undercounted its own, some of its recent assessments have been similar to those by government and expert analyses outside of Kyiv.
An independent analyst told Newsweek that Trump's estimate of Russian losses had "no basis in reality."
Trump’s ‘make peace or die’ message to Putin is deepfake – yet it fooled Russians
On Jan. 27, Andrey Isayev, a member of Russia's State Duma (the lower house of parliament), accused U.S. President Donald Trump of trying to "rudely" force Russian President Vladimir Putin to start peace negotiations with Ukraine. [...]
"Trump threatened our president rather rudely, it must be said, pressuring to start the negotiations and reminding of Qaddafi's fate."
The claim is false.
No, USAID didn’t pay Hollywood actors millions to visit Ukraine
Our rating: Manipulated media
The video is a fabrication that wasn't reported or published by E! News, a company spokesperson said. The video is consistent with material created by a Russia-aligned influence campaign, disinformation experts said.
Musk amplifies fake report claiming USAID paid celebrities to support Zelensky
Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr and other prominent conservatives are sharing a video that claims to show E! News reporting that the US's humanitarian agency paid millions of dollars to celebrities including Angelina Jolie and Ben Stiller to visit Ukraine and help boost President Volodymyr Zelensky's popularity amid the country's war with Russia. But the clip is not an authentic report, a spokesperson for the entertainment news channel told AFP, and Stiller has publicly rejected the allegations as false.
FactChecking Trump on ‘Meet the Press’
[Trump] overstated and understated the respective amounts of financial assistance that the U.S. and European nations have allocated to help Ukraine in the war with Russia.
Trump called out Europe, which he said has not provided nearly as much financial support as the U.S. to Ukraine amid its war with Russia.
"I think that Europe has to do more," Trump said, when Welker asked if the security of the U.S. "is linked to Ukraine's security." He continued: "We're in for $200 billion. They're in for $25 billion. And it affects them more than it affects us."
Those figures are not accurate.
