Sunday, November 8, 2026
President Donald Trump predicted in a 60 Minutes interview broadcast Sunday that the Russia-Ukraine war will be settled, telling interviewer Ross Douthat that the biggest obstacle to peace is the personal hatred between Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
"It was the hatred between Zelenskyy and Putin," Trump said. "If I had been president that war would've never started. Zero chance. But it did start. So I inherited that war. I believe we're very close to making a deal." Asked who he trusts more, Putin or Zelenskyy, he answered: "Well, I'd rather not say, but I get along with both. I believe that that war is going to end, and it's gonna end soon. And the only reason it's gonna end is because of me."
The interview came just days before Ukrainian, Russian and American delegations were scheduled to meet in Abu Dhabi for the first time since February — the next test of whether the president's confidence becomes a signed settlement.
Trump also rejected the charge that he has taken pressure off Moscow. "There's been nobody that's been tougher on Russia than me," he said. "Look at our trade. Look what I've done to them on trade with the sanctions and everything else." Pressed on the claim that he had recently lifted diesel sanctions on Russia, he answered: "I didn't lift diesel sanctions. I made it possible for Russia to give not us, but to the world — thousands and thousands of barrels of oil, of diesel, which it needed. Didn't do any big favor."
Asked whether it would all work out with a free and independent Ukraine, Trump closed with the line that will be quoted on both sides of the Atlantic: "I think we're gonna have it done, and I think it's gonna happen and they're gonna end up with a little bit different shape Ukraine."
For American households, an end to Europe's war matters at home: the fighting has kept pressure on world energy and food prices for years, and a settlement on the president's terms would let Washington turn its money and attention back to problems inside America's own borders.
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