Trump about Russia and Ukraine: "Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart”

As Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, sat beside him watching in silence, President Trump compared Russia and Ukraine to two fighting children who needed to work out their differences for a while before anyone could intervene.

“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday in an Oval Office news conference. “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”

“And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday,” Mr. Trump added. “I said, ‘President, maybe you have to keep fighting and suffering a lot, because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart, before they’re able to be pulled apart.’”