• 02/22/2025

Senator Sanders: Trump lies about Ukraine, Zelenskyy and Europe while cosying up to Putin – video

Pravda Ukraine

Bernie Sanders, US Senator from Vermont, has said that the American people are currently witnessing “an extremely sad moment in American history” as US President Donald Trump is substituting concepts, lying about Ukraine and Europe and siding with the head of the aggressor country Russia, Vladimir Putin.

Source: Sanders’ YouTube video

Quote from Sanders: “Yesterday, we witnessed an extremely sad moment in American history. We saw the president of the United States aligning himself with the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to undermine the independence of Ukraine and its democracy. Let’s be clear: Trump is showing us that he sees one of the world’s most brutal dictators as his friend, and our long-time democratic allies in Europe as his enemies. He wants a world that is safe for authoritarians and oligarchs but extremely dangerous for democracies. It will not surprise you when I tell you that Trump is lying – as he so often does.”

Details: Sanders also pointed out that Trump had lied about the fact that it was Ukraine who started the full-scale war with Russia. 

“Yesterday, Trump said that Ukraine started the war. That’s not true. Russia invaded Ukraine twice: first in 2014, then again in 2022. Right now, Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine. Since Putin’s horrific invasion, over one million people have been killed or injured. 

Every single day, Russia continues to rain down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities. Putin’s forces have massacred civilians and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children, bringing them back to Russian ‘re-education’ camps,” he stressed.

Sanders stated that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in 2023 as a war criminal for these atrocities.  

“Further, Trump called Ukrainian President Zelenskyy a dictator. That’s not true, either. Zelenskyy won 75% of the vote in free elections. In fact, his approval rating is higher than Trump’s,” he noted.

He asserted that in the midst of a brutal war, the Ukrainian parliament continues to function and free and unrestricted political debate takes place there.

“Trump claimed that our European allies have done little to support Ukraine in its fight against Putin’s invasion. He said the United States has contributed three times more than Europe. But that’s another lie. In fact, Europe has provided more aid to Ukraine than the United States,” the senator said. 

Sanders emphasised that it is not just about Trump lying again, as it is not news that he lies anymore. It is now about where the US president wants to take his country.

Quote from Sanders: “It’s what all this reveals about where he wants to take our country and, in fact, the entire world. Trump is cosying up to Vladimir Putin. So who is Putin? And what kind of world does he want to build? Putin is a dictator who crushed Russia’s movement toward democracy after the end of the Cold War. Russia holds sham elections every six years, where Putin wins 90% of the ‘vote’, and authorities don’t even try to hide their ballot-stuffing.”

More details: Sanders reiterated that in Putin’s Russia, there is no freedom of speech and free media, protests are brutally suppressed, tens of thousands of people are persecuted and imprisoned, and some are killed. He brought up Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition politician who died in a Russian prison in February 2024, as an example. 

Sanders said that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started, “hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled Putin’s brutal regime”, but the Kremlin leader has retained control of his country by offering Russian oligarchs a simple deal: “if you give me absolute power, I will let you steal as much as you want from the Russian people”.

“And that’s why in a country where many are struggling economically, Russian oligarchs have stashed trillions of dollars in offshore tax accounts,” Sanders noted.

Quote from Sanders: “That is the Russian leader that Trump admires. That is the Russian oligarchy that he supports. But that is not the perspective of the American people. We know, and we are proud of the fact that the United States of America is the longest-standing democracy in the world. We know that many hundreds of thousands of brave Americans, over the years, have fought and died to defend democracy. We also know that our allies in the world are those countries that believe in democracy, not authoritarianism.

In this critical moment of our history, I hope that every American, regardless of political perspective, will stand tall and say ‘yes’ to democracy, ‘no’ to oligarchy and ‘no’ to authoritarianism.”

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