On July 16, 2018, an unusual event occurred in American politics. After meeting with Vladimir Putin not Helsinki, Donald Trump assured in a joint press conference that he had “no reason” not to believe his Russian counterpart when he assured him that Russia had not tried to influence the 2016 presidential elections. Of course, Putin was lying: Russia intervened in those elections as it has done in those around the world, through propaganda on social networks, activation of hundreds of thousands of bots and hacking campaigns.
Russia was behind the leak of the emails of Hillary Clinton and Russia clearly took sides against the Democratic Party candidate in favor of a man who, after all, had been shaped politically by Steve Bannonone of the Kremlin’s great propagandists around the world. However, the problem went further: Trump’s statements were not only of devastating innocence, but they contradicted and called into question the conclusions drawn by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies.
In short, that, between the word of a declared enemy of the West and the thorough investigation of his own security services, the president of the United States was left, publicly, with the former. Obviously, it was the version that benefited him the most and the one that least questioned his victory, otherwise incontestable, in the electoral college in November 2016.
The hasty condemnations of India and Pakistan
Many feared that seven and a half years later, the situation would repeat itself. Last Monday, the Kremlin, through its usual spokespersons, i.e. Dmitri Peskov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrovshowed his indignation at the attack with dozens of drones on one of Vladimir Putin’s residences. The Russian president himself publicly insisted on this version, despite the absence of any evidence. As much as Ukraine denied it, within a few hours, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modiand the Pakistani, Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, condemned on social networks an attack that, strictly speaking, it was not known whether it had happened or not.
The worst came when that same Monday, at the end of his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu At Mar-A-Lago, US President Donald Trump seemed to join the conspiracy chorus. Asked about it, Trump first said he didn’t know anything and then admitted that he did, that he found it worrying and that he himself Vladimir Putin He had confirmed it by phone. When a journalist let him know that there was no data to corroborate the accusation against UkraineTrump simply shrugged his shoulders in a gesture that seemed to say the same thing as in Helsinki: Why would he want to fool me?
The implications of such credulity went far beyond the concrete fact. Much of what is being negotiated as a peace agreement has to do with the security guarantees that Ukraine receives in exchange for ceding territory. Although kyiv and Moscow do not agree on the amount of Donbas that Ukraine should give up and it is difficult for some to agree to leave Kramatorsk y Slavic as if nothing happened or that others accept that the current line of contact should mark the border, the truth is that these guarantees depend on American confidence.
In other words, if Washington is willing to believe that Ukraine has broken any of the conditions if only Russia affirms it, The future looks pretty bleak for Zelensky and yours. Perhaps for this reason, Moscow has always refused to allow Western verifiers to be in the disputed areas. Dealing with Trump alone is much easier for them.
Correction via the ‘New York Post’
However, the Kremlin’s refusal to present any evidence of the alleged attack was joined this Wednesday by the CIA report which ruled out that this had taken place. The director of the Agency himself, John Ratcliffeappointed in January by Trump, personally called the president to inform him of the results of the investigation. This time, Trump did not leave him embarrassed and backed down from his initial condemnation… although he did so in a somewhat peculiar way.
Instead of sending a statement to the media or making any kind of public statement, he simply reposted a message published by the newspaper on his social network, Truth. New York Post in which it was assured that everything had been an invention and that this invention showed that what was really standing in the way of peace was the Kremlin. He New York Post It is a markedly Trumpist and populist newspaper… but, on the Ukrainian issue, it has defended Zelensky and kyiv from the beginning.
Be that as it may, we must understand this repost of Trump as the admission that Putin has lied to him…if at some point he actually called him, which seems strange. The consequences that this snub will have on the future of the negotiations are difficult to calculate at this time, but will probably not go beyond the specific angerif it comes. There is too many things that link Trump with Russia: admiration for Putin, respect for autocracies and the idea that every pact must be built from pressure on the weakest. In that sense, thinking that Trump – and his team – are going to change their policy of constant demands for Zelensky and a red carpet for Putin seems like too much thinking.