When the two leaders had their first official summit in Helsinki in the summer of 2018, he told reporters he was taking the Russian leader at his word: that Moscow had not interfered in the 2016 election, contradicting his own intelligence community’s conclusion.
Of course, it suited Trump to adopt that position. US intelligence believed Russia interfered to help secure Trump’s victory, and harm the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
When Russia launched a full invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022, he described the Russian leader’s actions as “genius” and “savvy”, marking a sharp divergence from the horror expressed by virtually every other Western politician.
He also attacked Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, using the same language that the Kremlin did to denounce him, incorrectly as a “dictator”, and falsely claiming that Kyiv had started the war.
But suddenly it appears that Trump is not quite so enamoured with his counterpart.
“We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it.”
‘Vladimir, STOP!’
“I was very disappointed that missiles were flying, [fired] by Russia,” Trump said. “I was surprised and disappointed, very disappointed, that they did the bombing of those places after discussion.”
“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing,” he wrote. “Vladimir, STOP!”
Trump may finally be understanding that securing a lasting peace deal, or even a ceasefire that held for a few months, was not going to be as simple as he claimed.
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Trump probably believed he did have some sort of bond with Putin, of who he recently said: “I’ve known him for a long time now, we had to go through the Russian hoax”.
Some of his supporters also admired the kind of country Putin appeared to project – white, conservative, Christian. In 2024 Putin said he wanted Russia to be a a “safe haven” for citizens of people in the West who wanted to escape “destructive neoliberal ideas”.
In a rare moment of inner reflection, Trump even acknowledged Putin appeared to have been playing him.
What next for Ukraine?
Trump and his White House are continuing to push hard for a deal.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said on Sunday that “We’re close, but we’re not close enough.”
Zelensky rejected that proposal, saying a ceasefire should be 30 days or longer, as the US proposed more than a month ago. It was not an encouraging sign.
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