Donald Trump claims that investigations into his presidential campaign’s links to Russia led to Russian President Vladimir Putin launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In a Newsweek op-ed Monday, Trump said the Durham report made clear “beyond a shred of doubt that the Russia Hoax was the most atrocious weaponization of our government in American history” which “stoked mass hysteria that helped drive Russia straight into the arms of China.” “Instead of having a better relationship with Russia as I worked to build, we now have a proxy war with Russia, fueled in part by the lingering fumes of Russiagate delirium,” he continued. “Ukraine has been utterly devastated. Untold numbers of people have been killed. And we could very well end up in World War III.” The former president said earlier this month that if he’s re-elected, he’d leverage his “very good” relationships with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a deal to end the conflict.
