Putin shouldn’t have orchestrated a large-scale invasion of Ukraine when Donald Trump was in power because he gave him everything he wanted, former Kyiv ambassador Marie Yovanovitch told Insider.
During the Trump administration, Yovanovitch said, Putin could “sit back and enjoy the good times.”
This was said by Yovanovitch, Trump’s former ambassador to Ukraine The ex-president showed “high and evident admiration” for Putin and other strong leadersIt has ignored US allies and long held “negative” views about NATO and other global alliances.
– All these things encouraged Putin. Jovanovitch, who is fluent in Russian and has been an ambassador three times during his more than thirty years of service in the diplomatic corps, commented, There is no doubt about it.
throughout his presidency Trump was repeatedly accused of being subservient to Putin, and his political statements and decisions were considered beneficial to Russia’s interests.Such as seeking to readmit Russia into the G7, which was excluded due to aggression against Ukraine.
In July 2018, Trump and Putin held Widely commented press conference following the Bilateral Helsinki Summit.
The press conference between Trump and Putin shocked US allies and drew harsh criticism from national security and foreign policy experts and even some Trump supporters. He said, among other things, that he “sees no reason” for Russia to interfere in the 2016 US election.
When asked if he believed US intelligence or Putin, Trump declared it Putin is “very strong and convincing in his denial.” Trump also repeated conspiracy theories about the FBI and the Democratic National Committee, while declining to say he supports the findings of US officials regarding the Russian leader.
In his memoirs “Lessons from the Edge,” Yovanovitch called the meeting and press conference “disastrous” and called the remarks “a spectacle that left observers wondering how much Trump has reduced himself to being subservient to Putin.”
And this applies only to the words of the President of the United States that were “spoken in public,” as Yovanovitch wrote in his memoirs.
“Only God knows what Trump said in his two-hour face-to-face talks with Putin, an unusual meeting not only because of its length, but also because Trump subsequently did not brief US officials on his progress,” he adds. It raised all kinds of questions.
Jovanovic was one of more than a dozen witnesses He testified in the first investigation into Trump’s first impeachment trial. It relates to attempts to force the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to announce a political investigation against Bidnov before the US elections in 2020. During Trump’s lobbying campaign, he also stopped providing Ukraine with nearly $400 million in needed military aid — including Javelin anti-missiles. tanks – and arranged a meeting in the White House, which Zelensky was very keen on.
Yovanovitch pointed out The infamous phone call that Trump and Zelensky had in July 2019.any It became the basis for the accountability of the president.
Yovanovitch told Insider that “it was very clear that the president of the United States was trading his office for personal or political favor, rather than acting in the interest of our national security and helping to strengthen our partner country.”
It was “absolutely terrifying,” she added, noting that Trump’s actions sent a signal to Putin and other powers around the world that they could “make deals with this man” and “manipulate the president.”
