Donald Trump has called out Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing his invasion of Ukraine as a "Holocaust" and urging an end to the bloodshed.
The former president's words are a sharp u-turn as just last week, he heaped praise on Putin, calling him "very savvy" and a "genius"...
But during a Wednesday interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, Trump made it very clear that the Russian leader could no longer count on his support.
"We're watching a Holocaust. We're watching something that I've never seen before, the way that they're going to go in — they're blowing up buildings with children, with women, with professionals, with people — think of just people," he said.
"They're blowing up indiscriminately, they're just shooting massive missiles and rockets into these buildings and everybody is dying."
"But they don't respect the United States and the United States is like, I don't know, they're not doing anything about it. This is a — this is a Holocaust. This is a horrible thing that's happening. You're witnessing and you're seeing it on television every night," Trump added.
Last week on February 23, Trump described Russia's aggressive military campaign in Ukraine in very different terms during an appearance on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show podcast.
At the time, Putin had deployed troops in Ukraine under the guise of recognizing two separatist regions of Ukraine - Donetsk, and Luhansk - as independent states.
Former President Trump described this as a smart move, saying: "I went in yesterday, and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful."
He even described Putin as a "peacekeeper", saying: "I said, 'How smart is that?' And he's going to go in and be a peacekeeper."
The following day, February 24, Russian troops pushed into Ukraine from multiple directions and launched an all-out war on the nation, surrounding the capital Kyiv and bombing major cities.
While he has criticized Russia's war, Trump still did not denounce Putin personally during his appearance on Fox News.
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