The former President Donald Trump spoke out this week to admit that he misread Vladimir Putin, saying that he thought the Russian president was just trying to “negotiate” when he deployed troops to the border his country shares with Ukraine.

“I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.”

Trump went on to say that Putin has “very much changed” over the years since they had a decent working relationship during his time in the White House.

“I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,” Trump said. “And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

Trump also slapped down the leftwing narrative that he was soft on Russia, pointing out that Putin waited until he was out of office to invade Ukraine.

“I’ve been very, very tough on Putin. I get a bad rap on that,” Trump said. “At the same time, I got along with him very well. But I got along with most [world leaders] very well.”

Trump then stated that he pushed back against Putin’s agendas multiple times while in office.

“When you think of it, who was tougher on Russia than me?” Trump asked. “I got billions and billions of dollars’ for NATO.”

“Now, all that money is going against Russia, so I did that. I closed the pipeline. You know, the pipeline was closed, and Biden opened it. Plus, I did the biggest sanctions anybody’s ever done on Russia,” he continued. “I’ve been very critical of Putin from the standpoint of the pipeline, from the standpoint of raising billions and billions of dollars in NATO to protect, primarily, Europe against Russia. Nobody else did that.”

Daily Mail reported that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, with this being the largest attack on a European nation since 1945, when World War II came to an end. On Saturday night, Trump slammed President Joe Biden for the way he’s handled this situation, calling him “physically and mentally challenged.”

“You could take the five worst presidents in American history and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done in just 13 months,” Trump said. “We have a president representing our country at the most important time in history, who is physically and mentally challenged.”