Former President of the United States, Donald Trump, has said that Vladimir Putin is “very savvy” and made a “genius” move by declaring two regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states and moving Russian armed forces to them.
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Trump said he saw the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis on TV “and I said: ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”
The former US president said that the Russian president had made a “smart move” by sending “the strongest peace force He has ever seen” to the area.
“By the way, this never would have happened with us. Had I been in office, not even thinkable. This would never have happened. “This all happened because of a rigged election”, Trump said.
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‘Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. So Putin is now saying it’s independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper”, Trump added.
The comments were reminiscent of Trump’s notorious 2018 summit with Putin in Helsinki, in which he took the Russian president’s word over U.S. intelligence agencies. Throughout his first presidential campaign and his presidency, Trump criticized NATO and allied countries for not paying their fair share when it comes to joint defense.
Years later, Republicans with ambitions for higher office have praised Trump’s handling of Russia, with some appearing to offer similar views of Putin.
While most Republicans have balked at Putin’s moves in Ukraine and called for swift and steep sanctions, others aligned with Trump have echoed the former president and adopted a far less hostile view of the Russian leader and been more circumspect about any U.S. military action in Europe.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans have taken a more hawkish approach and pushed Biden to issue tough sanctions. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton has criticized the administration for waiting to impose sanctions until after Russia invaded Ukraine.
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