WASHINGTON (AA) – Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed the Biden administration for ongoing Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.

“If properly handled, there was absolutely no reason that the situation currently happening in Ukraine should have happened at all,” Trump said in a statement.

“I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump Administration what he is doing now, no way!” he added.

On Monday, Putin recognized the independence of Ukraine’s breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, prompting global condemnation and sanctions from Western nations.

Trump claimed “Russia has become very very rich during the Biden Administration, with oil prices doubling and soon to be tripling and quadrupling.”

“The weak sanctions are insignificant relative to taking over a country and a massive piece of strategically located land. Now it has begun, oil prices are going higher and higher, and Putin is not only getting what he always wanted, but getting, because of the oil and gas surge, richer and richer,” said Trump.

“The U.S. was energy independent under the Trump Administration, an independence that we had never obtained before, and oil prices would have remained low. Now, what a mess our Country is in!” he added.

During his presidency, political opponents and commentators alike accused Trump of being brazenly pro-Russia, and pointed to evidence of coordination between Moscow and then-presidential candidate Trump.

Trump was also found to have held up military aid for Ukraine if the country did not lend him support against his political opponents.

Trump also unsuccessfully pushed for the end of sanctions on Russia over its 2014 invasion of Crimea, saying the Ukrainian peninsula was Russian territory.

The invasion and occupation of Crimea has been condemned as illegal by the US, European Union, UN General Assembly and Turkiye.