Trump used his power to rewrite history in order to justify the United States’ participation in peace talks that did not include Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine “should never have started” the conflict, Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago during a game of golf on Tuesday, adding, “You could have made a deal.”
The truth that Zelensky initiated the conflict that started in February 2022 when Russian forces invaded Ukraine is the only one that matters, regardless of your opinion on the several billions of dollars that the US has spent on military aid for Ukraine or the question of which nations the US should form alliances with.
Despite Zelensky’s best efforts, he was unable to get a spot at the table during the negotiations held by Saudi Arabia and attended by officials of Putin’s dictatorship. This regime has been in power for the last quarter of a century, during six US presidencies.
On Wednesday morning in Kyiv, Zelensky held his own news conference and attempted to dismantle Trump’s alternate facts.
“Regrettably, President Trump — a leader of a nation we hold in high esteem, the American people who have consistently stood by us — unfortunately resides in this disinformation realm,” Zelensky stated.
In subsequent posts on his social media account, Trump repeated Kremlin talking lines, referred to Zelensky as a “dictator,” and made unfounded accusations that half of the funding approved by Congress for Ukraine has vanished.
Actually, supply of military systems and ammunition from US stocks has constituted over 50% of US aid to Ukraine. American taxpayers funded defense contractors in the United States to acquire weaponry and equipment for the United States military inventory; a portion of this stockpile was then transferred to Ukraine.
With Trump shifting his support toward Russia and away from Ukraine, this might seem like a turning point.
This comes at a time when Trump is attempting to reverse his impeachment for pressuring Zelensky to probe Joe Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election—an investigation that he still refuses to acknowledge he lost—and is being investigated for his interactions with Russians during the 2016 campaign.
That is to say, the past does exist. It’s worthwhile to take a brief glance over the past ten years.
Remember what happened a decade ago?
The idea of a real estate transaction in Moscow was shelved in 2015, when Trump was also seeking the presidency, according to AWN.
Even though special counsel Robert Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to infer that Russia and Trump’s campaign colluded, US intelligence assessments show that Russia actively sought to aid Trump’s victory—a claim that Trump now calls the “Russia Hoax.”
The Department of Justice prosecuted Russian nationals in 2018 for their alleged efforts to get emails belonging to the Clinton campaign after Trump publicly requested them.
Paul Manafort, who briefly served as Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016, has ties to pro-Russian figures in Ukraine, which was a factor in his decision to depart from the campaign.
In the first term of Trump’s presidency, what occurred?
Recounting it all would be too much. Just to name a few examples, Russia was a major distraction for Trump during his presidency. His first national security adviser was fired for lying about his meeting with the Russian ambassador, his first attorney general recused himself, Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI, was appointed to investigate Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election, several Trump associates, including Manafort, were tried, and there was much more.
How is Ukraine relevant here?
In 2019, Trump sought to smear Biden by pressuring Zelensky, who was recently inaugurated, to launch an investigation against the vice president and his son Hunter in return for military assistance to counter Russia. Trump was cleared of “high crimes and misdemeanors” in a Senate trial, but a whistleblower report and his first impeachment followed that call.
Right up until Wednesday, Zelensky made sure to sing Trump’s praises. In September, they crossed paths in New York.
Now let us turn our attention to the peculiar present dynamic: the foreign leader whom Trump is considering impeaching is also receiving billions of dollars in US military aid to counter the foreign leader whom US intelligence services suspect attempted to assist in Trump’s 2016 election. Got it?
In relation to Putin and Ukraine, what is Trump’s stance?
As a point of national pride, Trump often mentions the four years that Putin froze his plans for Ukraine while he was in office. Putin’s Russia did invade Crimea in 2014, under Obama’s presidency, and attempted to complete the mission in 2022, under Biden’s.
During his campaign in 2016, Trump said that if elected, Putin would refrain from additional incursions into Ukraine.
Not all of his forecasts have come to fruition. For example, his claim in the September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that “I will get it settled before I even become president” has not materialized.
When Putin attacked Ukraine, what was Trump’s response?
Trump had complimented Putin on his strength and referred to him as “savvy” at the same time that Putin was gathering soldiers on the Ukrainian border. Russia was seeking a pretext to justify an invasion, and the Biden administration was attempting to persuade the world to trust US intelligence that Putin was serious about it.
Like he does now, Trump went on Fox News and said that Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine was prompted by Biden’s failed exit from Afghanistan. It was during Trump’s administration that Biden first proposed his idea for Afghanistan, but Trump makes no mention of this.
Just in case you forgot what was happening on that fateful day three years ago, when Russia invaded Ukraine, AWN has your back. It was in it that Russia’s official defended the invasion, saying it was necessary to “liberate” Ukraine and “cleanse it of Nazis.” Just so you know, Zelensky is Jewish.
Where do other Republicans stand on this issue?
Many Republicans, in the years following the invasion, have essentially adopted Trump’s ideology. Former Senator Marco Rubio is one of several Ukrainian allies who has changed his mind. Those peace discussions with Saudi Arabia were attended by Rubio, who is now Trump’s secretary of state. Even while some Republicans, like as Roger Wicker, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, remain anti-Russia, the party is obviously shifting its focus to align with Trump’s ideology.
Under Trump, will Putin resign?
Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Wendy Sherman was a member of the Biden administration’s State Department who was engaged in negotiations with Moscow. Sherman told AWN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview on Wednesday that Putin’s continued ambitions to reestablish the Russian empire include seeking to annex Ukraine.
“Ideologically, he believes it. She criticized Trump for bending over backwards to appease Putin and normalize US-Russia ties in the sake of a peace accord, saying, “His belief in history is that he will settle for nothing less than the chance to ultimately take all of (Ukraine).”
