Trump says US nuclear submarine threat to Putin could end Russia-Ukraine war

Former US President Donald Trump thinks that threatening Russian President Vladimir Putin with nuclear submarines could make him remove his military troops from Ukraine, bringing an end to the invasion that has been ongoing for 26 days.

“You should say, ‘If you mention that word [nuclear] one more time, we’re gonna send [nuclear submarines and planes] over and we’ll be coasting back and forth, up and down your coast”, Trump told Fox Business on Monday. “You can’t let this tragedy continue. You can’t let these, these thousands of people die”.

Trump believes that had he still been in the White House, he would have taken more drastic measures against Putin which the current President Joe Biden hasn’t so far.

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The former president said he “listened to [Putin] constantly using the n-word”, referring to the world “nuclear”, during his dealings with the Russian president. However, he hoped there would be no use nuclear weapons because “it would be the tragedy of all tragedies”.

Sending nuclear submarines to Russia’s coast to pressure Putin to back out of Ukraine would likely dramatically escalate global tensions. The act would likely be seen as an intolerable provocation, which could lead to Russia reacting with a greater threat.

Trump’s latest comments are contrary to what he had said about Putin at the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Just a day before Russia invaded Kyiv, Trump called Putin a “genius” for recognizing two separatists regions in Ukraine as independent.

“I said, ‘How smart is that’? And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force”, Trump said in an interview on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show on February 23.

Trump said: “The problem is that our leaders are dumb…and so far, allowed [Putin] to get away with this travesty and assault on humanity”.

“Putin is playing [President Joe] Biden like a drum and it’s not a pretty thing to watch”, he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month.

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Biden, who is expected to meet with European leaders in Belgium on Thursday before flying to Poland, has repeatedly said that while the US wants to support Ukraine’s defense, his top priority is preventing “World War III”.

The Biden administration has sent Ukraine $2 billion in military aid, but has rejected calls to directly insert US forces into the war.

“We do not support the transfer of the fighters to the Ukrainian air force at this time and have no desire to see them in our custody either”, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters this month.