File photo: “Never before has an American president played such a subservient role to a Russian leader,” then the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was quoted as saying on August 22, 2020 during his presidential campaign . President Trump’s ‘subservience’ to Putin is ‘humiliating’ to the US, Biden said. Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian newspaper
President Trump lashed out at a Washington Post reporter who asked him if he felt disrespected by Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Speaking to journalists aboard Air Force One, Trump took exception to a question from the Post‘s White House reporter Michael Birnbaum. “Is President Putin disrespecting you by attacking Ukraine when you’re trying to make peace there?” Birnbaum asked.
“What did he do?” Trump asked in response.
“Well, he’s attacked Ukraine,” Birnbaum answered.
“Is he disrespecting me?” Trump replied, before asking: “Who are you with?”
After Birnbaum identified himself as a Post reporter, Trump shook his head dismissively. “You’ve lost a lot of credibility,” Trump said, before quickly moving on to take questions from others.
Trump snubbed the question about Putin after attacks struck multiple parts of Ukraine over the weekend, killing 14 and injuring dozens more, according to Kyiv. A missile blitz on Saturday came hours after Trump said the Kremlin leader was “doing what anybody would do.”
One missile hit in Dobropillia in the eastern Donetsk region, destroying an apartment building. As emergency services rushed to the scene a second projectile hit. Eleven people were killed. Three more people died and seven were injured after a drone attack in the city of Bohodukhiv, in the Kharkiv region.
Russian assaults on Ukrainian targets have picked up again after Trump temporarily pulled the plug on intelligence-sharing between Washington, D.C., and Kyiv. He also suspended military aid to Ukraine following his disastrous Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote in an X post after attacks over the weekend. “More bombs, more aggression, more victims. Another tragic night in Ukraine.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is meeting with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia this week. Zelensky, who didn’t join the meeting has said he has put “realistic proposals on the table.” Rubio is focusing on what concessions Ukraine is willing to make according to news from Riyadh
Useful idiots
US Vice-President JD Vance’s cousin has criticised him and President Donald Trump for “belittling” Volodymyr Zelensky ( L) during the three men’s Oval Office showdown in February. accusing them of refashioning the UNited States as ” Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots”
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have refashioned the United States into “Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots,” the VP’s cousin alleged in the wake of the Trump administration’s recent abandonment of military and intelligence support for Ukraine.
Nate Vance, a Texan who said he volunteered for three years fighting on the front lines against Russia’s Putin-ordered invasion of its neighbor, told Le Figaro in an interview published Sunday that he is “disappointed” in his “good” and “intelligent” cousin over the administration’s sudden and abrasive turn away from supporting America’s war-torn ally.
JD Vance was widely seen as the instigator of a blowup with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office earlier this month during which he and Trump berated their counterpart for allegedly not thanking them enough for U.S. military support.
In the days following the shocking exchange, Trump suspended military aid and intelligence sharing to Kyiv. The vice president’s cousin blasted the decision.
“When [JD Vance] criticized aid to Ukraine, I thought it was because he needed to appeal to his electorate, that it was part of the political game,” Nate Vance told Le Figaro. “But what they did to Zelensky was an ambush of absolute dishonesty.”
A former U.S. Marine, he said he volunteered for Ukraine’s Da Vinci Wolves First Motorized Battalion from 2022 to January of this year.
He and his politician cousin share grandparents, and he said the two of them have vacationed together. Nate Vance added that he has tried to contact JD, but hasn’t received a response.
“Being your family doesn’t mean I’m going to accept you killing my comrades,” he added to Le Figaro.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has opened lines of communication to Putin—whose decision to invade Ukraine three years ago violated international law, according to experts and the UN.
BBC/ Daily Beast