Donald Trump has questioned Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s competence and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia which is “20 times” its size.

The US president also said “millions of people are dead because of three people” – blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin, his White House predecessor Joe Biden, and Mr Zelenskyy, in that order.

It comes a day after 35 people, including two children, were killed by two Russian missiles that struck the northeastern city of Sumy as Ukrainians gathered to celebrate Palm Sunday in what was the deadliest strike on the country so far this year, according to officials.

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Speaking in the White House’s Oval Office during a meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Mr Trump told reporters: “If Biden were competent, and if Zelenskyy were competent, and I don’t know that he is…

“There was no way that war should never have been allowed to happen.”

He added: “Biden could have stopped it, and Zelenskyy could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it.”

Asked about Mr Zelenskyy, Mr Trump said: “When you start a war you’ve got to know you can win the war.

“You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size. And then hope that people give you some missiles.”

Mr Trump said he was the first to give Ukraine Javelin missiles.

“Millions of people are dead because of three people,” Mr Trump added.

“Let’s say Putin number one, let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelenskyy.

“And all I can do is try and stop it – that’s all I want to do. I want to stop the killing.

“And I think we’re doing well in that regard. I think you’ll have some very good proposals very soon.”

Mr Zelenskyy has called for a global response to the Sumy attack, in which more than 100 people were injured, saying the first strike hit university buildings while the second exploded above street level.

On Monday, Ukraine’s air force said a new Russian missile and guided bombs had targeted Sumy, but gave no indication of casualties or damage. Public broadcaster Suspilne reported an explosion in the city, with no further details.

‘It’s a horrible thing’

Asked about Sunday’s Sumy attack which is near the Russian border, Mr Trump earlier said on board Air Force One: “I think it was terrible and I was told they made a mistake, but I think it’s a horrible thing. I think the whole war is a horrible thing.”

When questioned about the incident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s forces only strike military targets.

The strike targeted a gathering of senior military officers, according to the defence ministry in Moscow which accused Kyiv of using civilians as shields by holding military meetings in the city centre.

The ministry also claimed to have killed more than 60 troops. Russia did not provide any evidence to support its claims.

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski, whose country currently holds the EU’s presidency, said that recent attacks are “Russia’s mocking answer” to Kyiv’s agreement to a ceasefire proposed by the US administration over a month ago.

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The attack on Sumy followed a missile strike on 4 April on Mr Zelenskyy’s home city of Kryvyi Rih that killed some 20 people, including nine children.

Russia and Ukraine’s senior diplomats have accused each other of violating a tentative US-brokered deal to pause strikes on energy infrastructure.

Ukraine has endorsed a broader US ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it by imposing far-reaching conditions.

Mr Putin has said he wants Ukraine to drop its ambitions to join NATO, Russia to control the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions it has claimed as its own, and the size of the Ukrainian army to be limited. He has also made clear he wants Western sanctions eased.

US vice president JD Vance has said America and the UK are “working very hard” on a trade deal and he believes they will reach a “great agreement”.

Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports to the United States several weeks ago, rocking the world economy, sending stock prices tumbling and sparking fears of a global recession.

Since then, Mr Trump has rowed back on those tariffs, reducing the rate paid on imports from most countries to 10% and, on Saturday, exempting electronics such as smartphones and laptops from the levy – including the 145% charge on imports from China.

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The UK was already going to face a blanket 10% duty before Mr Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” announcement of worldwide tariff increases.

The UK government has been hopeful of a deal to exempt the UK from Mr Trump’s tariffs, and in an interview with the website UnHerd on Tuesday, Mr Vance said he was optimistic that both sides could come to a mutually beneficial agreement.

“We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government,” Mr Vance said.

“The president really loves the United Kingdom. He loved the Queen. He admires and loves the King. It is a very important relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [Britain]. But I think it’s much deeper than that.

“There’s a real cultural affinity. And, of course, fundamentally, America is an Anglo country.

“I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries.”

Mr Vance said the “reciprocal relationship” between the US and UK gives Britain a more advantageous position than other European countries when it comes to negotiating new trade arrangements, adding: “While we love the Germans, they are heavily dependent on exporting to the United States but are pretty tough on a lot of American businesses that would like to export into Germany.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will aim to continue negotiations for an economic deal with the US later this month when she travels to Washington to attend the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings with other finance ministers.

Vance criticises Europe on defence

During the interview, where he spoke on the phone from the West Wing of the White House, Mr Vance also touched on the apparent shift in the US and Europe’s security relationship.

He said: “The reality is – it’s blunt to say it, but it’s also true – that Europe’s entire security infrastructure, for my entire life, has been subsidised by the United States of America.”

Mr Vance said that as recently as a quarter-century ago Europe had “many vibrant militaries, at least militaries that could defend their own homelands”, but nowadays he believes “most European nations don’t have militaries that can provide for their reasonable defence”.

The vice president added: “The British are an obvious exception, the French are an obvious exception, the Poles are an obvious exception. But in some ways, they’re the exceptions that prove the rule, that European leaders have radically underinvested in security, and that has to change.”

Mr Vance said his message to Europe was the same one as that shared by then-French president General Charles de Gaulle during the height of the Cold War.

The US vice president said General de Gaulle “loved the United States of America, but (he) recognised what I certainly recognise, that it’s not in Europe’s interest, and it’s not in America’s interest, for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States”.

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Mr Vance also suggested he believes a strong Europe would better for America.

“I don’t think that Europe being more independent is bad for the United States – it’s good for the United States. Just going back through history, I think – frankly – the British and the French were certainly right in their disagreements with Eisenhower about the Suez Canal,” he said.

Mr Vance added: “I think a lot of European nations were right about our invasion of Iraq. And frankly, if the Europeans had been a little more independent, and a little more willing to stand up, then maybe we could have saved the entire world from the strategic disaster that was the American-led invasion of Iraq.”

Asked about Mr Trump’s tariff regime and its impact on the stock market, Mr Vance said: “Any implementation of a new system is fundamentally going to make financial markets jittery.

“The president has been very consistent that this is a long-term play… Now, of course, you have to be responsive to what the business community is telling you, what workers are telling you, what bond markets are telling you. These are all variables that we have to be responsive to…. (to) make the policy successful”.

Donald Trump has suggested “homegrown criminals” in the US could be deported to jails in El Salvador – saying the US attorney general is “studying the laws right now”.

He made the comment while speaking alongside the Central American nation’s president, Nayib Bukele, in the White House.

The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador, since March.

When asked about the deportations – which were briefly blocked by a US court last month – Mr Trump said: “I’d like to go a step further.

“We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, hit elderly ladies on the back of the head when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters.

“I’d like to include them in people to get out of the country.”

When pressed on the matter by a reporter, he replied: “They’re as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones too. I’m all for it.”

US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was present at the meeting, is “studying the laws right now”, the US president added.

“If we can do that, that’s good,” he said. “I’m talking about violent people, really bad people.

“We can do things with the president [of El Salvador] for less money and have great security. He does a great job with that. We have other we’re negotiating with too.”

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The Trump administration has been deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members to the El Salvador jail since mid-March, when the US president signed the Alien Enemies Act.

The law from 1798 has been invoked just three times before, in wartime. It allows the president to detain and deport immigrants living in the US legally if they are from countries seen as “enemies” of the government.

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Lawyers and immigrant rights groups have been unable to contact the men sent to the 40,000 capacity CECOT prison – the largest detention facility in Latin America.

A judge issued a temporary block on the deportations on 17 March, but this was lifted by the Supreme Court last week.