This article explores the influence of Donald Trump's past dealings with Russia and Ukraine on his perspective of the ongoing war in Ukraine. It examines his contentious relationship with Vladimir Putin, his alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine for political gain, and his repeated dismissal of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
As his White House meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart devolved into a stunning blowup, U.S. President Donald Trump leaned on a familiar refrain to explain his unique kinship with Russia n leader Vladimir Putin . “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said Friday, raising his voice and gesturing with his hands as he recounted the long-since-concluded saga of a federal investigation in which both he and the Russia n president played starring roles.
“He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia, ever hear of that deal?” Trump said. The pointed reference to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election underscored the extent to which Trump’s lingering fury over an inquiry he has misleadingly branded a “hoax” remains top of mind more than eight years after it began. It also made clear that Trump’s view of a war Russia launched against Ukraine three years ago is colored not only by his relationship with Putin and the alliance he believes they share but also by his fraught past with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was a central player in the first of two impeachment cases against Trump during his first four years in office.Investigations tied to Putin connections Questions over Trump’s connections to Putin followed him into his first presidency and hung over him for most of his term, spurring investigations by the Justice Department and Congress and the appointment of a special counsel who brought criminal charges against multiple Trump allies. While running for office, Trump cast doubt on the idea that Russian government hackers had stolen the emails of Democrats, including his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, and orchestrated their public release in an effort to boost his candidacy and harm hers. Then, as president, he broke with his own intelligence community’s firm finding that Russia and Russia alone was to blame for the hack. Even when he begrudgingly conceded that Russia might be responsible, he also suggested the culprit might be a “400-pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.” In July 2018, while standing alongside Putin in Helsinki, Trump appeared to embrace the Russian leader’s protestations over the conclusions of U.S. intelligence officials by saying, “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”All the while, he memorably raged against the investigation, calling it a “hoax” and “witch hunt” and, as he did at the White House last week, repeatedly deriding all the “Russia, Russia, Russia” attention. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation wrapped up in 2019 and left no doubt that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election in sweeping and criminal fashion and that the Trump campaign had welcomed the help. But the inquiry did not find sufficient evidence to prove that the two sides had illegally colluded to tip the outcome of the election.If Trump’s history with Russia appears to have contributed to his worldview of the current conflict, so too has his past with Ukraine. He held a call in 2019 with Zelenskyy and pushed him to investigate corruption allegations against Democratic rival Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter ahead of the 2020 election, which Joe Biden went on to win. The call — which included Trump’s memorable line: “I would like you to do us a favor, though” — was reported by a CIA officer-turned-whistleblower who alleged that the president appeared to be soliciting interference from a foreign country in the U.S. election. After Trump’s call with Zelenskyy, the White House temporarily halted U.S. aid to the struggling ally facing hostile Russian forces at its border. The money was eventually released as Congress intervened.The president’s skepticism of Ukraine went beyond the call. During his first term, he also seemingly bought into a long-discredited conspiracy theory that connects Ukraine, not Russia, to the 2016 political interference and the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and repeatedly accused the FBI of a lackluster investigation that led to the blaming of the Kremlin.The long-term repercussions of the Oval Office spat, in which Trump called Zelenskyy “disrespectful” in the most hostile public exchange in memory between world leaders at the White House, remain to be seen. But the immediate consequences are clear, with Trump on Monday directing a “pause” to U.S. assistance to Ukraine as he seeks to pressure Zelenskyy to engage in peace talks with Russia. Earlier, the U.S. president again blasted the Ukrainian leader after Zelenskyy noted that a deal to end the war “is still very, very far away”,
Donald Trump Vladimir Putin Ukraine Russia War US Politics 2016 Election Robert Mueller Impeachment
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