Image Credit: Global Images Ukraine / Contributor / Getty Images 
Senior White House officials believe some European leaders are working to prolong the Ukraine war, even as they publicly back President Trump’s efforts to achieve peace.
“The Europeans don’t get to prolong this war and backdoor unreasonable expectations, while also expecting America to bear the cost,” an important White House official told Axios.
“If Europe wants to escalate this war, that will be up to them. But they will be hopelessly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”
European leaders are said to be pushing Ukraine’s President Zelensky to hold out for a “better deal,” an approach White House officials believe is making it harder to secure a final peace.
British and French officials are said to operating honestly and constructively in the interests of peace, but officials from other European nations are not. White House officials say these other nations want the US to bear the full cost of the war, without having any “skin in the game” themselves.
“Getting to a deal is an art of the possible,” same top official told Axios.
“But some of the Europeans continue to operate in a fairy-tale land that ignores the fact it takes two to tango.”
Yesterday, Infowars reported that President Trump believes a trilateral meeting between the US, Russia and Ukraine is still on the cards.
In an interview with the Daily Caller, the President said a meeting involving Presidents Putin and Zelensky could still happen, but only if the US is involved as a moderator.
“A [trilateral meeting] would happen. A [bilateral], I don’t know about, but a [trilateral] will happen. But, you know, sometimes people aren’t ready for it,” Trump said.
Trump has changed his tone significantly since his meeting in Alaska with President Putin earlier in the month, which he followed by meeting with President Zelensky and other European leaders.
Trump had called on Putin and Zelensky to hold bilateral talks, before a final trilateral meeting to being the war, which has raged for three-and-a-half years, to a close.
In his interview with the Daily Caller, he likened both sides to warring children, and suggested they needed to continue fighting before they could be properly broken up.
“You have a child, and there’s another child in the lot, in the playground, and they hate each other, and they start swinging, swinging, and swinging, and you want them to stop, and they keep going. After a little while, they’re very happy to stop. Do you understand that? It’s almost that way. Sometimes they have to fight for a little bit before you can get them to stop,” Trump said.
However, Trump reiterated his desire to bring the conflict to an end.
He also indicated that he would be willing to provide security assurances for Ukraine; although he said he would not be willing for American troops to be involved.
“There are five to 7,000, mostly young people, being killed every single week. If I could stop that and have a plane flying around the air every once in a while—it’s going to be mostly the Europeans—but we’d help them,” Trump said.
