Trump Makes Rare Admission On Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks: ‘I Thought I Had It Done’

President Donald Trump said in a rare admission of error that he had thought his recent sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin would lead to the end of the war on Ukraine.

“I thought I had it done,” Trump revealed in an interview with The Daily Caller published Saturday.

Trump sat down for an hour-long conversation Friday in the Oval Office with Reagan Reese, the conservative outlet’s White House correspondent. He said Putin is unlikely to meet with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy anytime soon.

“We’re not talking about something that I started. I inherited this war. And all I’m trying to do is put out the flame, you know. And I thought I had it done,” Trump told Reese, adding that he has previously “done it with wars that were tougher than this.”

“So three of those wars are going on for more than 30 years, and I got them all done,” he continued. “This was is just, it’s been difficult. It’s been a difficult war.”

Trump assuaged the noninterventionist part of his base Friday by once again vowing that no U.S. troops will be deployed to Ukraine, but said he’s willing to provide air support if it means winning the war. The president also expressed frustration with the conflict.

“Look, I’d like to see something get solved,” he told Reese. “They’re not our soldiers, but there are, five to 7,000, mostly young people being killed every single week. If I could stop that and have a plane flying around the air every once in a while … we’d help them.”

Reese asked Trump about the “big” issue he previously said he and Putin didn’t agree on at the summit. Trump offered no clarification about what the issue was, and instead touted his “good relationship” with the Russian president.

“That’s why I really thought we would have this done,” he said, alluding to an end to the war. “I would have loved to have had it done. Maybe they have to fight a little longer. You know, just keep fighting — stupidly, keep fighting.”