So from 2022 ( full scale invasion ) to 2025 when Biden was president it was going swimmingly?
If you look at the situation on the front line when Trump got in to power in Jan Russian already had the momentum ( if slow and grinding ).
So blaming Trump specifically seems like a bit like scapegoating. Sure he is against it and thus hasn't helped ( this started with me pointing to an incident where he appeared to be actively helping Russia ) - but surely it was already was going south before he became president.
> So blaming Trump specifically seems like a bit like scapegoating.
I'm not blaming Trump for the invasion -— it's clearly Putin's invasion! (Indeed in the last couple of days you can even see the slight hint that Trump now gets it. That he's tired of his "friendship" with "Vladimir". You can see a hint of him expressing narcissistic injury from Putin, which he hasn't ever really done before.)
But Putin has been manipulating Trump, Trump lets him, and that is as clear as day. He has absolutely done things Putin wants him to do and on Putin's timescales — the whole 60-then-50 days thing was clearly Putin's plan, for example.
It's not just at odds with former US policy: it's basically sort of revoltingly unbecoming, emasculating, creepy and odd, and it always has been. (e.g. Helsinki). No other politician except a couple of leaders from Russian client states talks about Putin in the frankly admiring, subordinate way Trump does. It's like he's a horse who has been broken. He does not look like who he is —- the leader of the free world, the head of a proper democratic state. He looks like a cheerleader.
Ultimately what I am saying, very clearly, is that people underestimate the extent to which Trump's presidential ambitions and presidencies have always been interwoven with issues about Ukraine. Like, from before he was even President. There is Ukraine at every turn. His people. His corrupt outreach to try to get Biden. Russia's involvement in his campaign. "Russia, if you're listening". Alaska. It goes on and on and on.
This is quite different to Obama or Biden, for whom Ukraine was just one of the things. Trump is just plain weird about Russia and Ukraine; he was after all impeached the first time over it. And he has a long, long history of being enamoured with Russia, relying on Russian emigres to invest in Trump project apartments, trying to do things in Moscow, and laundering Russian money (which is the point at which the Russia/Ukraine thing may intersect with the Epstein thing)
He is much tougher with Netanyahu, even. And that is saying something.
I wasn't suggesting that! I was suggesting you were blaming him for the failure of the US supported Ukrainian counter offensive - sure he hasn't helped - but in my view it was already failing.
On the wider point I agree Trump has an affinity to 'strong' leaders ( particularly for stop-at-nothing ethno-nationalists ). I'd argue that's because that's what he is, rather than some weird mind control. He shares views with them in the sense that saying Canada should be part of the US is quite similar to saying Ukraine should be Russian, or Netanyahu blatant disregard for the lives of Palestians because they are 'other' is reflected in Trumps views on ( non-white ) immigrants in the US ( legal or not ).
ie they are very similar people with similar views. One of the odd things about nationalists ( defining us versus them ) is they are quite happy to work with the 'them' if they are also nationalists....
If you look at the situation on the front line when Trump got in to power in Jan Russian already had the momentum ( if slow and grinding ).
So blaming Trump specifically seems like a bit like scapegoating. Sure he is against it and thus hasn't helped ( this started with me pointing to an incident where he appeared to be actively helping Russia ) - but surely it was already was going south before he became president.