Trump’s False Claim: No Other President Has Ever Ended a War

President Trump Makes False Claims About Ukraine War and Historical Events During Zelensky Meeting

President Donald Trump repeated several debunked claims during his Friday meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, including a fabricated narrative about Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In remarks to the press, Trump claimed that Russian forces failed to capture Kyiv quickly because they chose to travel through muddy terrain rather than using highways. “They got stuck in the mud. They would’ve been in Kyiv very quickly. They were heading to Kyiv,” Trump said, adding that “some brilliant general said, ‘Let’s go through the mud instead of going down the highway.'”

Military experts and Ukrainian sources have consistently refuted this characterization since Trump began making similar statements earlier this year. Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program who has closely monitored the conflict, explained that Russian forces actually did attempt to use roads and highways during their initial assault.

“Russian forces used roads and highways as much as possible during the initial invasion, and took heavy losses on many of them,” Lee said. “Russian tanks did get stuck in the mud during the initial invasion, but this was often after they struggled to advance along roads.”

Lee noted that one of the key factors limiting Russia’s advance was the scarcity of suitable highways from Belarus to Kyiv, which “canalized” their forces. The Russian military faced multiple obstacles beyond mud, including fierce Ukrainian resistance and significant logistical challenges.

When CNN previously sought comment on this claim in August, a White House official speaking anonymously acknowledged that Russian tanks did become mired in mud during and before the invasion. However, even documentation provided by that official contradicted Trump’s version of events, stating that “The Russians invaded using Ukraine’s major highways expecting a blitzkrieg-like attack.”

Trump also made dubious historical claims during the meeting, including his assertion that he “solved” or “ended” eight wars during his presidency—a figure analysts say significantly exaggerates his record by including conflicts that weren’t actual wars or remain ongoing.

Perhaps most strikingly, Trump claimed, “To the best of my knowledge we’ve never had a president that solved one war. Not one war. A lot of them start wars, but they don’t solve the wars, they don’t settle them.”

This statement contradicts well-documented historical facts. U.S. presidents have played crucial roles in ending numerous conflicts, including World War I, World War II, and the Gulf War. Several presidents have also brokered significant peace agreements: Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for mediating peace between Russia and Japan; Jimmy Carter facilitated the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty; and Bill Clinton played a key role in the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War.

During the same press appearance, Trump repeated several other false claims that have become fixtures in his rhetoric. He asserted that the Obama administration gave Ukraine only “sheets” as military aid, when in fact Obama provided more than $600 million in security assistance between 2014 and 2016, including counter-artillery radars, armored vehicles, tactical drones, and night vision equipment.

Trump also reiterated his thoroughly debunked claim that the 2020 election “was rigged,” despite having legitimately lost to Joe Biden in a fair election. He repeated misleading statements about tariff revenue, falsely claiming that “we took in hundreds of billions of dollars in my first term from China.” Economic studies, including analysis from the U.S. International Trade Commission, have consistently shown that American importers and consumers—not China—bore nearly all costs associated with these tariffs.

The meeting with Zelensky comes at a critical time for Ukraine as it continues to defend against Russian aggression, with ongoing debates in Washington about the future of U.S. support for the embattled nation.