Champagne corks were popping in Moscow after U.S. President Donald Trump verbally flogged Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.
Russian officials delighted publicly at Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy, relishing America’s about-turn in what had previously been a close relationship with Kyiv as Ukraine attempts to fend off Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s yearslong full-scale invasion.
Trump began his attack on Tuesday, falsely asserting that Ukraine had started the war with Russia and falsely describing Zelenskyy as having a 4-percent approval rating.
He then escalated on Wednesday, just a day after his negotiating team sat down with senior Russian officials in Saudi Arabia to discuss ending the war and begin cooperation on a range of topics.
“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump warned, accusing the Ukraine leader of “talking” the U.S. into spending billions to support its defense.
The Kremlin seemed barely to believe its luck, as Trump was essentially parroting many of Moscow’s talking points about Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council and the country’s former president, endorsed Trump’s anti-Ukraine tirade: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the U.S. president, I would have laughed out loud. @realDonaldTrump is 200 percent right. Bankrupt clown … ”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov didn’t directly address Trump’s first public denunciation of Zelenskyy, but expressed satisfaction with the U.S. president’s more recent remarks on the war, saying Trump “understands” the Kremlin’s position.
“He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the impudent line of the previous administration [of former U.S. President Joe Biden] to draw Ukraine into NATO,” Lavrov said, echoing a long-term Kremlin narrative about the reasons for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“No Western leaders had ever said that, but he had said it several times. This is already a signal that he understands our position.”
Lavrov also said that Moscow and Washington must “clear out” Biden’s legacy, which the foreign minister said had eroded the “long-term partnership” between Russia and the U.S.
The growing rhetorical bond between the Kremlin and the White House indicates that the two are already on their way to achieving that goal.
The evident glee of Russian leaders at Trump’s new approach to the war highlights America’s increasing alignment with the Kremlin.
Turmoil gripped European officials last week when Trump announced U.S.-Russia negotiations on the conflict, effectively cutting both Ukraine and the EU out of the talks and upending the post-1945 security architecture that has underpinned Europe.
Putin, for his part, continued to drive a wedge between Trump and the EU during remarks to the media on Wednesday.
“All European leaders, all without exception, essentially directly interfered in the election process in the U.S.,” the Russian president said. “I am surprised by the restraint of newly elected U.S. President Trump towards his allies, who behaved, frankly speaking, in a boorish manner. He still behaves quite courteously toward them.”
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