2024-09-29 05:38:11
Trump’s relationship with Ukraine has always been divided. The ex-president praises Putin and insults Zelensky. Now he met the Ukrainian president and was mild. What is behind the double messages?
On February 26, 2022, Donald Trump took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida. That was just two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And there the former US president stood and called the Russian president a “smart” man. Trump described the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj was opposing the man in the Kremlin as “brave.”
At that moment, Trump set the tone for his handling of the Ukraine war: On the one hand, he showed a certain compassion for the suffering of Ukraine and its leader Zelensky. On the other hand, he held back from condemning Russia’s actions or distancing himself from his image as someone with a “very good relationship” with Putin. While the war of aggression, which violates international law and has now left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, has been going on for almost three years, Trump has always maintained his double messages.
Trump’s expressed appreciation for Putin was nothing new when he invaded in February 2022. Even during his presidency, Trump often described the Russian president as a “genius” and “clever.” But in his CPAC speech in Orlando, he criticized Western leaders for failing to prevent the war.
For Trump, the problem to date is not Putin’s aggression, but rather the supposed weakness and incompetence of the Biden government, which allowed the conflict to occur. When he met Ukrainian President Zelenskyj in person for the first time in five years in his Trump Tower in New York this Friday, the presidential candidate reiterated this view.
In reality, there is probably less extensive knowledge of the complex problem situation between Ukraine and Russia. Rather, this portrayal allows Trump to maintain the public image of him as a strong and pragmatic leader.
When Trump appeared in front of the cameras next to Zelensky in New York, he emphasized on the one hand what a “great relationship” he had with him. He praised the Ukrainian president as “tough” because he refused to play political games when Democrats tried to remove him from office in 2019. At the time, Trump was accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine to gain political favors.
Zelensky, who found himself in a difficult position, publicly stated that Trump had done nothing wrong – a statement that Trump has apparently never forgotten. In addition to Zelensky, Trump continued: “And, as you know, I also have a very good relationship with President Putin.”
There is also a strategy behind this double message. The ex-president portrays himself as the one who could have prevented the war through his strong relationships with both Zelensky and Putin. In this way, Trump manages to evade any responsibility for the war while implying that the conflict is solely the result of poor diplomacy by his successors. Ergo, he is also much better able to end the war.
“At some point it has to end, it has to end,” Trump said. Zelensky and his country “went through hell” like only a few countries in history. “Nobody has ever experienced anything like this. It’s a terrible situation,” Trump said. In Zelensky’s presence he suddenly expressed something like compassion. Just a few days ago he insulted the Ukrainian president.