By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump made multiple false claims to the press during a Friday meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House – including a long-debunked claim about the war in Ukraine.
Trump repeated his previous fake history about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, saying that Russia failed to win the war in a mere week because it decided to invade through muddy ground rather than simply using highways.
“They got stuck in the mud. They would’ve been in Kyiv very quickly. They were heading to Kyiv,” adding moments later, “That was a very interesting moment. When the tanks started rolling and some brilliant general said, ‘Let’s go through the mud instead of going down the highway.’ Right? So they got a little bit lucky.”
This is not what happened, as military analysts and various Ukrainians have pointed out since the president began making similar claims earlier in the year. In reality, Russia tried and failed to make it to Kyiv using roads and highways. Its tanks were thwarted by fierce Ukrainian resistance and logistical problems in addition to muddy conditions.
“Russian forces used roads and highways as much as possible during the initial invasion, and took heavy losses on many of them. Russian tanks did get stuck in the mud during the initial invasion, but this was often after they struggled to advance along roads,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy...
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