\u2018Kremlin whisperers\u2019 have the president\u2019s ear and dissenters are few \u2013 but a thin skin and self-interest are also at play<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s tarring of Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> as a \u201cdictator\u201d who is to blame for the war with Russia, plunging Ukraine into a Darwinian struggle for its very existence, landed like a bombshell on the diplomatic landscape. But it did not come out of nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US president has left the already badly frayed western alliance in disarray with a devastating social media attack<\/a> on his Ukrainian counterpart, just hours after he had already implicitly blamed Kyiv<\/a> for Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After much of what he said appeared to echo Kremlin talking points, including falsehoods about Zelenskyy\u2019s popularity being at 4% (a recent poll put it at 57%), Ukraine\u2019s president attributed it to Trump being trapped in a Russian \u201cdisinformation bubble\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, Trump may be the author of his own misconceptions about Ukraine<\/a> \u2013 or at least responsible for having built the bubble himself, by surrounding himself with prominent figures who have often seemed to echo the Russian line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A year before he left European leaders mortified at last week\u2019s Munich security conference<\/a> by accusing them of threatening their own democracies with supposed free speech restrictions, JD Vance<\/a> \u2013 now Trump\u2019s vice-president \u2013 was already questioning military support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow long is this expected to go on? How much is it expected to cost?\u201d he said<\/a>, complaining of a \u201clack of strategic clarity\u201d in US and allied goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was one of Vance\u2019s milder comments. Last year he labelled Zelenskyy \u201cdisgraceful\u201d<\/a> when he visited Washington last year to lobby Congress for military aid, and days before Russia\u2019s invasion in February 2022 he told Trump\u2019s former aide Steve Bannon he did not \u201creally care<\/a> what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As stories emerged of Russian atrocities, he doubled down, telling Bannon: \u201cI don\u2019t care enough about what\u2019s going on over there that I\u2019m going to step in, get a bunch of our citizens killed and pour more and more money into the war sinkhole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other members of Trump\u2019s inner circle long associated with a pro-Russian viewpoint also include Tulsi Gabbard, newly confirmed as director of national intelligence, and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who remains one of the president\u2019s most influential backers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabbard has been accused of parroting Kremlin<\/a> talking points and was challenged on the subject at her recent Senate confirmation hearings \u2013 particularly her decision to blame the Russian invasion on Ukraine, as Trump has now done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden admin\/Nato had simply acknowledged Russia\u2019s legitimate security concerns,\u201d she wrote, as Russian missiles struck Ukrainian cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carlson, meanwhile, conducted a face-to-face interview<\/a> with Vladimir Putin last year as the war raged, which some commentators said the Russian leader used to broadcast a message to Trump and other US conservatives. Carlson was ridiculed for a Pravda-esque video segment praising Russian supermarkets for having coin-operated shopping trolleys, which all western supermarkets have had for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact when Pete Hegseth, Trump\u2019s new defence secretary, gave a speech shortly after Vance\u2019s in which he said the US would no longer be \u201cprimarily focused\u201d on European security and that Ukraine would never be allowed to join Nato \u2013 appearing to simply hand Russia key concessions in the negotiations over ending the war without getting anything in return \u2013 he was condemned by the Republican senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate\u2019s powerful armed services committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know who wrote the speech \u2013 it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,\u201d Wicker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Wicker \u2013 and recently Mike Pence, Trump\u2019s former vice-president, who wrote on social media, \u201cMr President, Ukraine did not \u2018start\u2019 this war\u201d \u2013 are rare Republican voices of dissent. The Reaganite hawks from Trump\u2019s first term such as Pence, Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger, who might have advised a US president to hold the line against Russian expansionism into Europe, have been purged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, Trump may need little outside prompting to feel friendly towards Russia, or Putin, for whom he has long displayed personal admiration. Russian interference on Trump\u2019s behalf during his victorious 2016 presidential election campaign against Hillary Clinton was well-documented by the US intelligence community \u2013 and Trump has since developed a hatred of those agencies such as the FBI and CIA, who pointed it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In particular, an inquiry conducted by the special counsel, Robert Mueller<\/a>, into alleged collusion between the campaign and Russia, was bitterly resented by Trump, who denounced the allegations as a \u201choax\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in 2019 Trump attempted to pressure Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into Joe Biden and the business interests of his son, Hunter, in Ukraine, in return for US military assistance \u2013 an apparently clear abuse of presidential power for Trump\u2019s personal political gain, and which led to his first impeachment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s more, his new righthand man Elon Musk, who supported Ukraine with Starlink satellite service to help repel Russia\u2019s invasion, tangled with Zelenskyy<\/a> in 2022 after suggesting Ukraine abandon Crimea permanently to Russia and drop its ambitions to join Nato. In recent days, Musk has targeted Zelenskyy on social media in personal terms \u2013 perhaps providing the inspiration for Trump\u2019s dismissal of the Ukrainian president as \u201ca modestly successful comedian\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n