Donald Trump has been asked about his statement that Vladimir Putin has “let me down”.
“Well, he has let me down,” Trump replies, reaffirming his position.
“He’s killing many people and he’s losing more people than he’s killing, frankly the Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers,” he says.
Trump repeats his claim that the war would never have started if he were the president.
“It’s millions of people that have died in that war, millions of souls, and they’re not American soldiers,” he says.
“The soldiers are being killed at levels nobody’s seen since the Second World War. I feel I have an obligation to get it settled for that reason.”
Trump reiterates something he told Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office – that the conflict could have erupted into a third world war.
“That’s a war that could have been a third world war, and I don’t think we’re going to be there now,” he says.
“That was heading to a third world war and what a shame it is.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up at the end of Trump’s answer and says “we have to put extra pressure on Putin”.
“It’s only when the president [Trump] has put pressure on him that he’s actually shown any inclination to move,” he says.
Referring to recent strikes on government buildings and the British Council in Kyiv, the PM said of Putin: “They’re not the actions of someone who wants peace.”
“We’re prepared to take the lead in this,” Starmer added, referring to European allies and NATO, and efforts to guarantee any potential peace deal.