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Trump has a history of dealing extremely generously with Putin and taking him at his word. If Putin or his representatives told him it was really Ukraine's fault, I would expect Trump to repeat that. It's probably not helping that Zelenskyy recently pointed this out, since Trump is notoriously fragile.
The other half of this is that Trump has the mind of a thug. When the powerful threaten you, you make concessions. If you don't, it's your fault for whatever happens.
It depends on how you see the recent history of Ukraine.
First of all, Ukraine (with generous help from the West) had a color revolution in 2014. This was eventually to lead to Zelensky taking power in Ukraine. This leads to Ukraine becoming much more friendly to the West, and petitioning and working toward membership in the EU and protection from NATO. That’s a big shift from Ukraine as before it had a Russian friendly government and was aligned to Russian interests.
If you uncritically accept Russia's position that they have the right to dominate Ukraine, then the Ukrainians did start it by not applying their tongues to Russian boots with sufficient vigor. However, I refer you to my remark about thuggish worldviews. Russia has no more right to demand subservience from Ukraine than the US does from Canada or Mexico.
It's hard to see how a change of government in a neighboring country justifies invading them (twice!) and engaging in naked land grabs.
What exactly does this mean? The "Euromaiden was fake/astroturf" position runs aground on the absolutely massive, cross-spectrum popular participation.
I’m not uncritical of the Russian version of the story. Both versions are likely at least somewhat true in the sense that while the Revolution seems to have been organic, it was helped along by the West. But to my mind, you really can’t engage with the war and the causes or likely outcomes unless you can explain what all sides actually believe is going on and why they’re making the decisions they’re making. The most important part of the Russian version of the color revolution story is that this is what Russia believes about the color revolution.
If I want to understand Vietnam and the American war in Vietnam, im going to have to know what Americans thought they were fighting for and what they believed was going on. Does that make Domino Theory true? No. But refusing to engage with that theory just means I don’t understand it.
Again, in what way? Specifically. I suppose you could say that the EU created friction by offering Ukraine a trade deal that was liable to agitate Russia, but that just brings us back to the issue of Russia feeling entitled to dominate Ukraine.
When Trump says "You should never have started it", he's not engaging in cold-blooded causal analysis and I see no reason to pretend that he is. Like, yes, obviously Russia/Putin has a perspective on why the war is justified, but there isn't actually that much divergence between pro and anti-Russian positions on why Russia invaded Ukraine, just in how seriously you take their justifications.
He is not engaging in causal analysis at all, he is criticizing Ukrainian leadership for not making a deal. This is literally his next sentence. Trump is not a guy who speaks precisely, you can’t read so deeply into his throwaway comments.
It is, however, a perfect example of how (not) to engage in media coverage over him.
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