Thread by @Mylovanov

Trump: I must meet Putin — now. If he won’t play ball, sanctions hit. Putin’s tired of war. Zelensky? Tough to deal with. Delegating peace doesn’t work.

So if Trump finally steps in, hard and direct, and gets the deal — he’ll stand above all. Or maybe Putin’s has played him. 0/

Trump: I have a very good relationship with Putin. We have to get together fast. We'll probably schedule it up.

I'm tired of having other people go and meet and everything else. I'm the only one that's going to be able to get the deal done. 1/

Trump: Nobody uses leverage better than me. Look what I did to Iran.

Q: Why not do it with Russia?

Trump: Honestly, I will [impose sanctions], if we don’t get a deal.

This is Turkey time. 2/

Trump: Putin is tired of this whole thing. He's not looking good and he wants to look good.

Don't forget this [war] was supposed to end in one week.

If he didn't get stuck in the mud with his army tanks all over the place, they would have been in Kyiv in about 5 hours. 3/

Q: Is Putin now the obstacle to peace?

Trump: I had a real rough session with Zelensky because I didn’t like what he said.

He was not making it easy. I always said he doesn’t have the cards. You know I’m being honest. 4/

Trump: I hated to see the way it [aid to Ukraine] was pissed away. Zelensky's the greatest salesman in the world, far better than me.

Every time he comes to Washington, he walks out with 100 billion.

Now his abilities are shrinking - the last time he only got 60 billion. 5/

Trump: Putin wanted the whole thing [Ukraine]. He didn’t want a chunk. He didn’t want a peace.

Somebody said ‘Well, what do we get out of it in terms of let’s say Ukraine?’

You know what they get out of it? A large portion of the country. 6/

Trump: Putin was making a fortune out of oil. Now I have it down. So nobody's making a fortune anymore.

And it's going to go down further because I'm drill, baby, drill. 7X