Senator Jack Reed hits out at Trump\u2019s verbal attacks on Ukrainian president and increased alignment with Russia<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A senior Democratic lawmaker accused Donald Trump<\/a> of \u201csurrendering to the Russians\u201d on Sunday, as Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff said talks between the US and Russia over Ukraine was \u201cthe only way to end the carnage\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an interview on ABC News\u2019 This Week, Democratic senator Jack Reed, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, hit out at Trump\u2019s recent verbal attacks on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> and increased alignment with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEssentially, this is President Trump surrendering to the Russians,\u201d Reed said<\/a>. \u201cThis is not a statesman or a diplomat. This is just someone who admires Putin, does not believe in the struggle of the Ukrainians and is committed to cozying up to an autocrat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But senior administration officials sought to side-step accusations that Trump\u2019s re-positioning of US policies on Ukraine<\/a>, including a possible deal for Ukraine to repay US military and financial support with rare-earth materials, amounted to a capitulation to the Russian position on the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Witkoff, Trump\u2019s special envoy to the mideast who revealed<\/a> this week that he had \u201cspent a lot of time with President Putin\u201d, during a recent trip to Moscow, \u201ctalking, developing a friendship, a relationship with him\u201d, declined to blame Russia for starting war in Ukraine, calling Ukraine\u2019s ambitions to join Nato \u201ca threat to the Russians\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe war didn\u2019t need to happen \u2013 it was provoked. It doesn\u2019t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians,\u201d Witkoff said<\/a> on CNN\u2019s State of the Union on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining Nato\u201d, he said. \u201cThat didn\u2019t need to happen. It basically became a threat to the Russians and so we have to deal with that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Witkoff\u2019s remarks come days after he, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz, held talks in Saudi Arabia with Russian officials over re-establishing diplomatic relations and a Russia-Ukraine peace deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainian officials said they were not invited to the meeting, and later said they would not accept a peace deal imposed on them. But Ukraine\u2019s position later appeared to shift after Trump called Zelenskyy a \u201cdictator without elections\u201d who \u201cbetter move fast or he is not going to have a country left\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday, Zelenskyy said he wanted Trump to be a close partner to Ukraine, not just a mediator between two superpowers, the US and Russia, and would be willing to step down, if it would secure lasting peace for his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf, to achieve peace, you really need me to give up my post, I\u2019m ready. I can exchange it for Nato [membership]\u201d, he said<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t plan to stay in power for decades\u201d he added. \u201cBut we won\u2019t let Putin stay in power over Ukrainian territories either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That came as President Putin appointed the chief of Russia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev<\/a>, as a special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation with western nations \u201cincluding the United States of America\u201d. Dmitriev, considered the most US-savvy member of Russia\u2019s elite, was part of the Russian delegation that met with US counterparts in Riyadh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nato membership for Ukraine has all-but been ruled out by the US negotiators. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, confirmed to Fox News Sunday<\/a> that no US troops would be part of any future peace-keeping force in Ukraine and dodged the question over responsibility for starting the bloody three-year conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDoes all the finger-pointing and pearl clutching make peace more likely? That\u2019s the enduring question the president is asking. He wants peace, and if that\u2019s the case, you\u2019ve got to stare down the Russians, and Vladimir Putin<\/a>, and who they\u2019ve chosen to negotiate and have earnest conversations about difficult things,\u201d Hegseth told his former colleague Shannon Bream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cStanding here and saying, \u2018You\u2019re good, you\u2019re bad; you\u2019re a dictator, you\u2019re not a dictator; you invaded, you didn\u2019t\u2019, it\u2019s not useful, it\u2019s not productive. So President Trump isn\u2019t getting drawn into that in unnecessary ways and as a result, we\u2019re closer to peace than ever before,\u201d Hegseth added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The White House continued its pushback against claims that it has pivoted to Russia\u2019s position on the war. \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s peace through strength America First diplomacy effectively deterred Russia in his first term, and this war would have never started if he had never left office,\u201d said the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in an email to the Wall Street Journal.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Leavitt said Trump was \u201cactively pressing both sides to end this brutal conflict once and for all\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n