President Donald Trump said Ukraine, not Russia, started the war. He is called Ukrainian President Voldymir Zelenki – not Vladimir Putin, he is a dictator. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration stands up against a string of tough anti-Kremlin policies.
In just a month, Trump has carried out an astonishing restructuring of American foreign policy, effectively casting our support behind Moscow and rejecting a tough alliance with Kiev, cultivated by former President Joe Biden.
The extraordinary pivot overturned decades of Takiist foreign policy against Russia, which provided a rare region of bipartisan consensus in an increasingly divided country. Trump’s recent move has attracted international attention, unsettling the thrilling conservative populists who support the turn from Europe’s US allies and Zelensky.
The new stance received harsh relief on Friday at a tense oval office meeting between Trump and Zelensky. Leaders clashed in front of the press, raising doubts about the future of American support for Kiev, more than three years after Russia launched Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
US officials have made a series of policy changes over the past few weeks, when it appears to be a more cooperative attitude with Russia.
The White House ordered a suspension of military aid to Ukraine as the administration conducts reviews, White House officials and US officials told NBC News last week. Inaugurated General Pam Bondy dissolved efforts to seize Russian oligarch assets on his first day in office, disbanding Biden-era programme known as the Task Force Klept Capture and the Kleptocrate Asset Recovery Initiative. An attempt to sow divisions into American politics. Secretaries of Marco Rubio and other top Trump administration officials traveled to Saudi Arabia last month to begin peace talks with Russia, but Zelensky said Ukrainian officials were not invited.
For a long time, Trump has publicly stated his desire to reset and improve relations with Russia. He has repeatedly said he believes that he is in his national interest to “get along” with Moscow and question the value of the core parts of the post-World War II global security architecture, including NATO and the European Union. Trump’s first term was hidden by former special advisor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia. This is an investigation that Trump repeatedly rejected as a “Russian hoax.”
Trump pushed back Democrats and other critics who accused him of postponing Russia.
“I don’t have Putin. I don’t have anyone. I’m working with the United States and for the benefit of the world, I’m on the sidelines with the world. I want to do this again,” Trump said Friday from the oval office.
However, the US government appears to be fighting away from Kiev at the moment. In the weeks since the inauguration, Trump suggests that Ukraine was the cause of Russian invasion, “starting” the war and reflecting familiar topics from the Kremlin.
The relationship between the president and Zelenkie has long been bewildered as a call in July 2019 pressured Ukrainian Biden and his son Hunter to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter about the latter position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company. After the phone leaked, it helped me to touch Trump’s first blast each. (He was eventually acquitted by the Senate.)
Vice President JD Vance was similarly consistently skeptical of the continued US support for the Ukrainian government.
“The bitter irony of America’s current predicament is that people who support permanent weapons shipments to Ukraine support American industrialization,” Vance said in a post in X on Sunday. “What you want us to send is something we’re not making enough.”
Trump’s approach is a dramatic departure from traditional US foreign policy towards Russia, spanning the Cold War with the former Soviet Union and the rise of Putin. American presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike have similarly spoken more positively about the threat posed by brave Russia in general.
The Putin administration welcomed an overture from Trump. In a statement reported by Russian state media agency TASS, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised Trump as a pragmatist working on “common sense.”
“We see that the collective western part of the country has begun to lose partially that unity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Monday.
Democrats and anti-Trump Republican commentators have been sharply criticizing the administration since the Oval Office Conference, accusing Trump of effectively selling out Ukraine. In a post on his true social platform early Monday, Trump defended himself and claimed he helped keep much of Ukraine intact.
“President Donald J. Trump is the only president who has not given Putin’s Russia Ukrainian land,” he wrote in the Post. “Remember that weak and ineffective Democrats are criticising and fake news are happy to come out and say what they say!”
However, there are partisan disparities in Ukraine. Gallup recently found that 84% of Democrats have a positive view of Ukraine, while only 54% of Republican poll respondents said the same thing.
Trump Zelensky’s nausea sparked a small number of Republican lawmakers defended Ukraine, most of whom are Mike Johnson and R-La. and Sen. Lindsey Graham (Rs.C. – Zelenskyy said he might have to resign.
The feud continued on Monday, when Trump lightly pared his Ukrainian counterpart in a social media post.
But Trump is by no means the first president who has not sought a hostile relationship with Moscow. Barack Obama and his first Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have embarked on a famous bid to “reset” ties with Russia. However, these efforts fell largely apart after Putin invaded Crimea and seized it from Ukraine in 2014.
Biden and Zelensky’s relationship also showed signs of tension. NBC News reports that Biden lost his temper at Zelenskyy during the June 2022 call, according to four people familiar with the phone. Biden raised his voice, saying Zelensky could afford to thank billions more for US military aid to Kiev.
Nevertheless, Biden and his top diplomats worked to rally international support for Kiev’s resistance to Moscow. Britain, France and other European allies took part in the battle.
The disagreement between Biden and Zelenskyy was not a public dress down in an oval office. During their meeting, Trump told Zelensky that the conversation would be even more tense and that it would end up with Ukrainian leaders leaving the US without signing a mineral deal.
“You had to be more grateful because telling you that you don’t have a card,” Trump said.
