White House Tells Of Trump's Reaction To Russian Federation's Overnight Strike On Ukraine

• 3.02.2026, 23:15

The US president had earlier personally asked Putin not to strike Ukraine because of severe cold weather.

US President Donald Trump was not surprised by the overnight Russian strike on Ukraine, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt told reporters.

Answering a question about the Republican's reaction, Leavitt said she had communicated with Trump on the morning of February 3 and the latter was "unfortunately not surprised."

"These are two countries that have been engaged in an extremely brutal war for several years," she said, adding that the conflict would not have started if Trump had been in power. Leavitt accused previous U.S. leader Joe Biden of "weakness and incompetence."

Trump said on Jan. 29 that he personally asked Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to halt strikes in Ukraine for a week because of severe cold weather. When exactly this happened, he did not specify.