Trump blames Zelensky for starting war after massive Russian attack

Donald Trump has again blamed Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war with Russia – a day after a major Russian attack killed 35 people and injured 117 others in the Ukrainian city of Sumy.

The US president said Ukraine's leader shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the "millions of people dead" in the conflict.

"You don't start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles," he said at the White House on Monday.

His comments followed Russia's strike on Sumy on Sunday - the deadliest attack on civilians this year. Moscow also hit the city's outskirts on Monday night.

Nato's secretary general Mark Rutte went to Ukraine on Tuesday in a show of solidarity with Kyiv following the missile strikes.

Joining Zelensky in Odesa, Rutte condemned the "terrible pattern" of attacks on civilians and said "Russia is the aggressor, Russia started this war, there's no doubt".

Trump on Monday had first described the Sumy attack as "terrible" but said he had been told Russia had "made a mistake". He did not give further detail.

Moscow said it had targeted a meeting of Ukrainian soldiers, killing 60 of them, but did not provide any evidence.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian media reported that there had been a medal ceremony for military veterans in the city on the day of the attack. Zelensky sacked Sumy's regional chief on Tuesday, for allegedly hosting the event, local media reported.

Trump on Monday also blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for the war's casualties- which are estimated in the hundreds of thousands, not the millions he's claimed.

"Millions of people dead because of three people," Trump had said. "Let's say Putin number one, let's say Biden who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky."

Questioning Zelensky's competence, he said the Ukrainian leader was "always looking to purchase missiles".

"When you start a war, you got to know you can win," the US president said.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Zelensky and Biden for the war, despite Russia invading Ukraine first in 2014, five years before Zelensky won the presidency, and then launching a full-scale invasion in 2022.

Trump further argued on Monday that "Biden could have stopped it and Zelensky could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it. Everybody is to blame".

Tensions between Trump and Zelensky have been high since a heated confrontation at the White House in February, where the US leader chided Ukraine's president for not starting peace talks with Russia earlier.

By contrast, Trump has taken action to drastically improve relations with Moscow.

Trump's administration has sought to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and has held negotiations with Moscow that have cut out Kyiv.

Trump said he had a "great" phone call with Putin last month, and the Russian president sent him a portrait as a gift a week later.

In February, Washington voted with Moscow against a UN resolution that identified Russia as the "aggressor" in Russia's war against Ukraine.

After talks between US and Russian officials failed to produce a ceasefire in Ukraine, Trump said he was "very angry" with Putin, though he added he had a "good relationship" with the Russian leader.

US envoy Steve Witkoff, who met Putin in St Petersburg for close to five hours on Friday, called his meeting "compelling".

He said the Russian leader's request had been to get "a permanent peace... beyond a ceasefire".

The detailed discussions had included the future of five Ukrainian territories Russia is claiming to have annexed since it launched the full-scale invasion of its neighbour and "no Nato, Article 5" – referring to the Nato rule that says members will come to the defence of an ally that is under attack.

"I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large," Witkoff told Fox News on Monday.

"There is a possibility to reshape the Russian-United States relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities that I think give real stability to the region, too. Partnerships create stability," Trump's envoy said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was less effusive, describing the contacts as positive but with no clear outlines of an agreement.

In an interview recorded before Russia's deadly attack on Sumy, Zelensky had urged Trump to visit Ukraine before striking a deal with Putin to end the war.

"Please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead," Zelensky said in an interview for CBS's 60 Minutes programme.

At least 35 people were killed when Russian forces fired two Iskander missiles into the heart of Sumy on Sunday.

The blasts took place minutes apart while many civilians were heading to church for Palm Sunday, a week before Easter.

A bus was destroyed in the attack and bodies were left strewn in the middle of a city street. Ukainian and US officials have asserted that cluster munitions may have been used.

No casualties were reproted from Moscow's strike on the outskirts of Sumy on Monday night.

Ukraine's military on Tuesday said it had struck a base belonging to the Russian rocket brigade that conducted Sunday's missile attack on Sumy.

Russia's conflict in Ukraine goes back more than a decade, to 2014, when Kyiv's pro-Russian president was overthrown. Russia then annexed Crimea and backed insurgents in bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine.