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GOP Blames Joe Biden for Russian Aggression. Don’t Forget About Donald Trump.


As Russian President Vladimir Putin laid the groundwork for an invasion of Ukraine, Republicans in Congress laid the groundwork to blame President Joe Biden for not stopping an attack.

But it is former President Donald Trump, retired military officials and diplomats recently told The Daily Beast, who may be more responsible for the crisis lurking with Russia than Biden.

Trump, who has ties to Russia has complex famous, has pushed back the supply of aid to Ukraine in 2017. Trump is reportedly reluctant to provide security aid, in part, because he wants Ukraine return to the United States. That year, Putin made its case to Trump during the 2017 meeting where Russia has a claim to Ukraine.

Trump has also opposed and imposed Putin’s rhetorical arguments on territorial expansion. trumpet tell world leaders during a private dinner in 2018 that Crimea — the peninsula on the Black Sea between Russia and Ukraine that Russia annexed by force in 2014 — really belongs to Russia because everyone there speaks Russian.

In a tougher power sense, Trump also withheld military aid to Ukraine in 2019, reconciling aid over a political “donate.” In withholding funds that were appropriated by Congress to support Ukraine’s security, the Trump administration violated the law, Government Audit Office later determined.

In July 2019 full of scandal call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump, Zelensky is still demanding the purchase of Javelin anti-tank weapons. And while Trump withheld security aid, Ukraine became more vulnerable. Ukraine has been deprived of weapons, artillery, training and advisers, leaving it weak and wobbly. Ukrainian soldiers eventually began to resort to stuffing straw in their empty uniforms and carrying logs to make it look as if they had anti-tank missiles on their shoulders, New York Times reported in 2019.

Even when Trump eventually acquiesced and provided aid, he made the condition that the equipment was not used for war.

According to General Ben Hodges, the delay in supplying Ukraine with top-class military equipment – as well as Trump’s disregard for the security realities on the ground in Ukraine – had long-lasting consequences, reinforcing strengthen the Kremlin’s resolve to take further action in present-day Ukraine, according to General Ben Hodges. former commander of the United States Army in Europe.

“He completely didn’t appreciate and understand the magnitude of what was happening,” Hodges said of Trump. “And that’s what I think is most valuable to the Kremlin is that they see the US government as not appreciating, understanding, or even caring about that administration what’s going on.”

Hodges told The Daily Beast that Trump’s disregard for encouraging Putin and causing damage is now increasing tensions.

While the political consequences of any disaster or bloodshed in Ukraine in the coming weeks will inevitably fall on Biden—increase his approval higher ranking is like withdrawing fake money from Afghanistan did – it was the prolonged corruption from the Trump administration that created conditions ripe for an attack.

“There is no comparison to President Trump and President Biden when it comes to Putin — one praising him with compliments and the other calling him a murderer,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D. -NH), who has led the senators’ trip to Ukraine in recent days, told The Daily Beast.

Hodges agrees that Biden took a significantly different — and significantly better — approach to Putin and Zelensky.

“It’s ridiculous for someone to say that somehow the Trump administration is better on Ukraine or better on Russia than the current administration,” said Hodges, who also previously served as head of Allied Command on NATO mainland, said.

Of course, Republicans see the situation very differently. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has blamed an attack that has yet to happen at Biden’s feet.

“It’s the result of a year of Joe Biden’s incompetence and incompetence with respect to Russia in particular and in foreign policy in general,” Cotton said at a press conference this week, citing the decisions he made. alleging that Biden gave, like when he allegedly “looked the other way about the Colonial Pipeline hack.”

Even those one-sided remarks hint at major revisionism. Russian hackers attack Colonial Pipeline with ransomware attack last year, to which Biden responded by calling Russian actors, warning the US could respond with a cyberattack of its own against Russia – a marked departure from Trump, who often looks the other way toward Russian cyber and information activities. Biden also told Putin to cut it out.

But Republicans believe the growing crisis with Russia and Ukraine is proof that Biden has softened.

“Many of my Democratic colleagues were quick to criticize President Trump, arguing that initially he was not doing enough to repel Russian aggression,” said Sen. Top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. , said Wednesday. “And then they realized he was doing so much more.”

But Steve Pifer, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, says it’s just a political invention.

“It’s just BS politics if you have Republicans saying, ‘Wow, the Trump administration has gotten tougher,'” Pifer told The Daily Beast. Not sure how Trump talks about Russia, I’m not sure he fully understands what his policy is.”

However, Republicans have either forgotten or are re-enacting Trump’s role in the current impasse. Some are eerily blaming the Democratic Party’s legislative program for an impending invasion. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) said the “election hysteria” of the left had “overshadowed what is happening right now between Russia and Ukraine.”

But there are lawmakers who are trying to avoid this blame game to show a united resolve against Russia. A bipartisan group of senators who have traveled to Ukraine this past week have deliberately avoided the Russian situation turning to a familiar partisan line.

“That’s the purpose of the trip, to get the Republicans and Democrats there, to show Ukraine – to show that Russia is more important – that despite the division you see in Washington between Republicans and Democrats, Democracy on other issues, we’ll go together,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), who recently returned from the trip, said on CNN Tuesday.

Shaheen also told The Daily Beast: “We all agree on the need to build a road forward that could have serious consequences for Putin if he does something wrong,” Shaheen also told The Daily Beast. told The Daily Beast, stressing that there is bipartisan consensus on that.

Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), who also made the trip to Ukraine, emphasized during Wednesday’s GOP press conference that lawmakers and the Biden administration were truly united.

Those messages are perhaps more important than many Republicans believe.

Bret Schafer – who, as head of the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Security of Democracy, monitors Russia’s information activities – said Russian state media really caught the kind of infighting. this party in the United States.

“You see this direct amplification when a senator is basically saying that Biden’s policies toward Russia have backfired — that has improved,” Schafer told The Daily Beast. “Even if sometimes the statement is: ‘He is too weak against Russia,’ it will only be picked.”

“What they are looking for,” continued Schafer, “is a fault response. Division is key. ”



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