Donald Trump has said Vladimir Putin has "really let me down" - and delivered a chilling warning over the threat of a world war.

The US President claimed he thought the Ukraine war would be the "easiest" to resolve out of ongoing conflicts due to his relationship with Kremlin tyrant. Speaking at Chequers, Mr Trump said: "He's let me down. He's really let me down...I thought it might be among the easiest of the group."

Mr Trump later said the Russia-Ukraine war doesn't really affect the US "unless you end up in a world war on this, you could."

Keir Starmer said Europe had been "stepping up to the plate" to offer support for Ukraine after the US President demanded more action. He said: "We have built the coalition of the willing with British leadership and French leadership, stepping up with military planning in the seas, in the sky, on the ground and ramping up what we do with the Ukrainians themselves.

"And, of course, that taken with an American guarantee is now an example, I think, of the challenge of Europe stepping up to the plate, which it has done in the last few months, to show - through what we and the French have done - that we're prepared to take the lead in this."

Mr Trump then added: "That's a war that could have been a third world war, and I don't think we're going to be there now, but that was heading to a third world war. And what a shame it is. What a shame it is."

He claimed that Putin began the war because "he didn't respect the leadership of the United States" at the time.

Mr Trump said: "He has let me down. I mean, he's killing many people and he's losing more people than he's, you know, than he's killing. I mean, frankly, Russian soldiers are being killed at a higher rate than the Ukrainian soldiers. But, yeah, he's let me down."

He added: "If I were President, it would have never happened, and it didn't happen for four years. People, most people, agree. It didn't happen, nor was it close to happening.

"I spoke to President Putin about Ukraine, it was the apple of his eye. I've said that many times, it was, but he would have never done what he did, except that he didn't respect the leadership of the United States."

Mr Trump later added: "Millions of people have died in that war, millions of souls, and they're not American, they're soldiers, mostly soldiers, as you know, the soldiers are being killed at levels nobody's seen since the Second World War.

"But they're being killed and I feel I have an obligation to get it settled for that reason."