Donald Trump has given his most intense scrutiny of Russia's war on Ukraine, describing the death and destruction in the European country as being like a "holocaust."
The former president was speaking to Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo and once against said the Russian invasion spearheaded by Vladimir Putin would not have happened under his watch.
Trump condemned the military action taking place in Ukraine and said the number of casualties from the war may be higher than being reported.
"I look at what's happening in our country it's like it's run by fools," Trump said.
"We're fighting Russia. We're watching a holocaust. We're watching something that I've never seen before.
"They're blowing up buildings, with children, with women, with professionals, with people, just people, they're blowing up indiscriminately. They're just shooting massive missiles and rockets into these buildings and everybody is dying.
"The numbers are far worse than what you're seeing on television. I don't know if they keeping them down. When you see buildings being blown up and then they say one person died? Give me a break. Many people are dying and we're allowing this to happen."
On Monday, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reported that there had been at least 102 people killed, including seven children, during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but feared the actual death toll may be "considerably higher."
Trump repeated the holocaust comparison later on in the Fox Business interview while stating that a deal needs to be done with Russia in order for them to "stop killing all these people."
He added: "They have to stop it and they have to stop it now, but they don't respect the United States, and the United States is not doing anything about it.
"This is a holocaust, this is a horrible thing that's happening and you see it on television every night."
The tone is in stark contrast to Trump's praise of Putin ahead of the invasion of Ukraine. Speaking to the The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, Trump said Putin's tactic of recognizing two self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine and sending Russian troops to the regions under the guise of "peacekeeping operations" was "genius" and "very savvy."
Trump later told a crowd at his Mar-a-lago resort in Florida that the Russian president was Putin was "pretty smart" as he had "taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions."
Elsewhere during the Fox interview, Trump suggested that China will invade Taiwan soon because the the country is "seeing how stupid" the United States is run.
"They're seeing that our leaders are incompetent, of course they're going to do it. This is their time. They did nothing on Ukraine, they do nothing."
