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25 Feb, 16:43

Trump flips on Ukraine in bid to normalize ties with Russia — portal

The advisors pointed to two events that shaped Trump’s views on Ukraine and NATO

WASHINGTON, February 25. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump has done an about-face on Ukraine because he wants to normalize relations with Russia, the Axios portal said, citing his advisors.

According to the advisors, after years of Western antagonism, Russia was ultimately forced to launch its special military operation. Trump’s belief is that "NATO helped provoke" the conflict years ago, they say. In their words, Trump’s "critics won't accept that Trump campaigned to end the war, that Putin isn't leaving the Ukrainian territories he has seized, and that Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to resist for much longer," Axios noted.

The advisors pointed to two events that shaped Trump’s views on Ukraine and NATO. Thus, at a summit in Bucharest in April 2008, NATO said that one day it would admit Ukraine and Georgia, a move Russia made clear it opposed. In February 2014, a secretly recorded phone call between Victoria Nuland, who was Under Secretary of State at that time, and US Ambassador to Ukraine, Jeffrey Payet, was made public. The two discussed candidates for key positions in Ukraine and Washington’s support for anti-Russian political forces. This call "showed the depth of US involvement in Ukraine," the portal noted.

A turning point in the US’s policy under Trump came on February 24, 2025 when the US refused to support an anti-Russian UN General Assembly resolution on the Ukrainian conflict that had been drafted by European countries and Kiev after the UN Security Council adopted a US-proposed neutral draft.