Trump promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war in a day. Now he’s funding it

October 11, 2026 — 5:00am

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Donald Trump came to office boasting he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in a single day. In fact, he’d been saying that well before he returned to the White House after his first term.

Way back in March 2023, he promised that, if re-elected, he would settle the war before he was even inaugurated.

“It will take me no longer than one day. I know exactly what to say to each of them.” By “them” he meant Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.

Such was Trump’s confidence in his willingness to do what others wouldn’t, his ability to deploy American power, and his own personal exceptionalism, that perhaps he genuinely believed he would succeed.

But after nearly two years back in power he has not only failed to end the war, he has now, in principle at least, committed to funding it.

Trump’s announcement on Friday (US time) of a deal to immediately buy 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel fuel – with millions more to come – was described by Zelensky as “weak”, unfair and dishonest. “It looks like a happy birthday present for........

© The Sydney Morning Herald