Donald Trump confident Putin wants peace despite ‘bombing the hell out of Ukraine’

Ukrainian officials Friday accused Russia of launching more than 200 overnight missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure across a broad swath of the nation, hitting targets in five regions while damaging residential buildings and injuring residents.

But Trump, speaking to reporters Friday in the Oval Office, said he takes Russian President Vladimir Putin at his word when Putin says he wants peace.

“I believe him. I think we're doing very well with Russia,” Trump said, acknowledging that for the moment “they're bombing the hell out of Ukraine.”

“He’s doing what anybody else would do,” the U.S. president said of Putin. “I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now.”

Trump also expressed continued frustration with Kyiv.

“I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. They don’t have the cards,” he told reporters.

When asked if the United States would consider giving Ukraine additional air defenses, Trump said it depended on Ukraine.

“I have to know that they want to settle. I don’t know that they want to settle,” he said. “If they don't want to settle, we're out of there because we want them to settle.”

Other U.S. officials, meanwhile, have pushed back against the notion that Trump’s tactics to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table — which has included a pause on military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv — have made Ukraine more vulnerable.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Fox News late Thursday that the pause on intelligence sharing is designed only to prevent Ukraine from launching offensive operations against Russia.

“Any intelligence going toward defending Ukraine against attacks coming into their country would continue,” Gabbard said.

A U.S. defense official Friday confirmed to VOA that there has been no pause on intelligence that would allow Ukraine to defend itself, adding that Ukraine also maintains access to Starlink, the satellite internet system owned by Trump ally Elon Musk.

As for the overnight attack by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on social media that many of the drones were taken out by antiaircraft defenses. He said that for the first time, French-made Mirage fighter jets were deployed in air defense, and that U.S-made F-16s were also used.

Zelenskyy, in a statement on his X social media account Friday, said that despite the Russian attacks, Kyiv is committed to seeking peace.

“Intense work with President Trump’s team has been ongoing at various levels — numerous calls,” he wrote. “The topic is clear — peace as soon as possible, security as reliably as possible. Ukraine is fully committed to a constructive approach.”

In a separate statement on Telegram, however, Zelenskyy expressed frustration with Moscow.

“Every day, new Russian attacks and reality itself prove that it is Russia that must be forced to make peace — to stop the war, to engage in real diplomacy,” he said, according to a translation of his comments.

The latest barrage of Russian missiles and the responses from the U.S. and Ukraine come as Zelenskyy plans to travel to Saudi Arabia Monday for meetings with U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss a possible ceasefire with Russia.

The meeting would be the first between Zelenskyy and U.S. officials since the Ukrainian leader’s contentious White House meeting last week with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, as reporters looked on.

Earlier this week in a letter sent to Trump, Zelenskyy said the way the meeting went was “regrettable” and Ukraine was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible.”