It's clear that trump was cheerleading Putin's actions and mocking the US. He even "joked" that we should do something similar on our southern border:
"And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border."
His surrogates like Tucker Carlson are also praising Putin and suggesting that liberals are your enemy, not Putin (https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1496290844797992960). This attitude among the American right became prevalent at trump's direction, and it is not an accident.
This may not seem like much to a non-American, but it's a shameful change in our national discourse for a political leader to cheerlead an enemy like this in the middle of a crisis. If you ignore this, fine - but my other point still stands, trump was anti-NATO and wanted to get out of it:
"‘Yeah, the second term. We’ll do it in the second term,’ then-president reportedly said"
My thought on the entire situation - Putin expected trump to win again and pull from NATO, and then he'd kick this shit off. That didn't happen but he didn't expect Biden to be able to lead a strong, unified response (sanctions etc.) after the disastrous years of trump poisoning the relationship the US has with Europe.
Unfortunately Putin just has to wait until western nations to elect fickle / Russian aligned leaders (like maybe trump again in 2024) to win out.
"And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border."
His surrogates like Tucker Carlson are also praising Putin and suggesting that liberals are your enemy, not Putin (https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1496290844797992960). This attitude among the American right became prevalent at trump's direction, and it is not an accident.
This may not seem like much to a non-American, but it's a shameful change in our national discourse for a political leader to cheerlead an enemy like this in the middle of a crisis. If you ignore this, fine - but my other point still stands, trump was anti-NATO and wanted to get out of it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-presiden... (reported in 2019)
and his concrete plans reported recently: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
"‘Yeah, the second term. We’ll do it in the second term,’ then-president reportedly said"
My thought on the entire situation - Putin expected trump to win again and pull from NATO, and then he'd kick this shit off. That didn't happen but he didn't expect Biden to be able to lead a strong, unified response (sanctions etc.) after the disastrous years of trump poisoning the relationship the US has with Europe.
Unfortunately Putin just has to wait until western nations to elect fickle / Russian aligned leaders (like maybe trump again in 2024) to win out.