Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agreed to meet to discuss the end of the war in Ukraine. What do we know about the relationship between the presidents of the United States and the Russians?
Trump has a story of positive and fans about Putin who have caused criticism that he is “soft with Russia.” He rejects that, saying that no president of the United States was harder in Moscow.
Trump has called Putin a strong and intelligent leader and has said that “he got along very well” with him during his first mandate in the White House. However, since the beginning of his second term, Trump has criticized Putin's behavior of the “ridiculous” war in Ukraine and said the conflict is “destroying” Russia.
Putin “can't be excited, is not doing so well,” Trump told journalists on January 20, the day of his inauguration. “Russia is bigger, they have more soldiers to lose, but that is not a way of directing a country.” He has threatened more sanctions and tariffs on Russia if Putin does not agree to end the war.
Putin said last month that he had always had “pragmatic and trustworthy relationships with Trump, and expressed his support for the false statement of the latter that he, did not Joe Biden, was the true winner of the presidential elections of the United States 2020. He said he and Trump have much to talk about, from Ukraine to energy prices. Putin has also spoken admirer of Trump's courage when an armed man tried to kill him last year, saying that he behaved like a “real man.”
Collusion research, Electoral Based and 2018 Summit
During Trump's first mandate, the United States special lawyer, Robert Mueller, spent almost two years investigating Russian efforts to interrupt the presidential elections of the United States of 2016, in which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, and if there were collusion between Moscow and Trump associates. The 2019 Mueller Report concluded that Russia had been broadly entrusted into the elections through piracy and misinformation operations, but did not establish any conspiracy or coordination with the Trump campaign. Responding to Mueller's report, Trump declared: “After three years of lies and spots and slander, Russia's deception is finally dead.”
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In July 2018, at a summit with Putin in Helsinki, Trump surprised his own assistants and the public of the United States when, contradicting the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies, he said he accepted the “extremely strong and powerful” denial of the Kremlin leader who had interfered. in the American elections of 2016 to sabotage the Clinton campaign.
The late Republican senator John McCain said that no president of the previous United States “has been abandoned more abject before a tyrant.” The next day, Trump went back and said he had been wrong.
Does Putin have material committed to Trump?
The speculation that Putin could have some kind of waiting about Trump, and be able to blackmail him, was fueled by the emergence in 2017 of a document known as the “Dossier Steele”, prepared by a business intelligence company directed by a former former former British spy.
He suggested, among other things, that Russia could have compiled spooky details of an alleged interaction with prostitutes during a 2013 visit made to Moscow. Trump said the file was “false news” that opponents circulated to damage it.
Many of his statements were never justified, and Trump's lawyers have said that he was “atrociously inaccurate” and contained “numerous false, false or invented accusations.”
At Helsinki's summit, Putin was asked directly if Russia had any “committed material” about Trump or his family. Putin said he had not been aware of Trump's Moscow trip and that he was “nonsense” assume that Russia gathered land with each high -ranking American businessman who came to Russia.
(Mark Trevelyan report; Sharon Singleton edition)