Trump says Ukraine started the war with Russia. His top man in the Senate disagrees

John Thune was speaking after the U.S. voted against a United Nations resolution that would have put responsibility for the brutal Russian invasion on the man who ordered it. The top Republican in the U.S. Senate broke with the Trump administration on the question of who started the war in Ukraine.

On Monday, the United States voted against a resolution backed by 93 nations that condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. In doing so, the U.S. found itself on the same side as Russia, North Korea and Belarus. Previously, Donald Trump has said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is responsible for starting the war.

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he was not sure why the U.S. voted the way it did at the United Nations. “I don't know what's all behind that, my assumption it's part of the negotiation right now,” he said. “But I'm pretty clear about who I think started the war.”.

When asked by The Independent if Russia started the war, he said “Yeah, yeah. I've said that.”. The vote came on the third anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine. But Trump has frequently criticized not only Ukraine, but specifically Zelensky, calling him a “modestly successful comedian” who “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start.”.

The United States is currently in the middle of negotiating with Russia and Ukraine to bring an end to the war. The Trump administration has specifically pushed for Zelensky to cede control of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. There are reports that a deal could be signed this week.

Thune is not the only Republican to break from the White House. “I'd rather we had voted for it,” Sen. Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Independent. “I wasn't there, I haven't read it,” he said. Democrats for their part slammed the Trump administration.

“It's it's just shocking how the White House has become a Kremlin propaganda machine,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told The Independent. Murphy said the push for an economic deal with Russia and mineral rights in Ukraine are part of the same pattern.

“This is about the billionaires making money off of Ukraine and Russia,” he said. “We’re just a joke. You can’t rely on us.”. U.S. policy has increasingly caused Europe to feel nervous and raised fears that American allies are less likely to trust the United States. After Germany’s election, the nation’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz called for “independence from the USA.” Trump administration adviser Elon Musk openly backed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Vice President JD Vance had called on the German government to work with the party, something all mainstream parties in Germany have refused to do. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Independent that the Trump administration’s actions hurt U.S. credibility.

“They [the Ukrainians] have fought honorably and for the United States to even hint that Russia has done anything more than act as an aggressor in violation of international law undermines the moral authority of the United States,” she said. “Also makes clear that under Donald Trump, the United States becomes a less trustworthy partner.”.

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, another member of the Armed Services Committee, said he spent the past week meeting with Virginia National Guard troops training in Finland, which joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) amid the war in Ukraine.

“They were not saying ‘we cannot rely,’ they were saying, ‘we want to rely, we joined NATO for a reason,’” Kaine told The Independent. On Monday, Trump met with French President Emmanuel Macron and will meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday.