‘I don’t think Trump figured out’ Putin’s Ukraine plans or nuclear threats, former adviser Fiona Hill says

Russia expert says former president has fallen for propaganda on Ukraine

Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who has served in the White House during both Democratic and Republican administrations, says that her former boss Donald Trump ignored warning signs of Vladimir Putin’s revanchist ambitions and threats to use nuclear weapons.

“Putin tried to warn Trump about this, but I don’t think Trump figured out what he was saying. In one of the last meetings between Putin and Trump when I was there, Putin was making the point that: “Well you know, Donald, we have these hypersonic missiles.” And Trump was saying, “Well, we will get them too.” Putin was saying, “Well, yes, you will get them eventually, but we’ve got them first,”” she told Politico on Monday.

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“There was a menace in this exchange. Putin was putting us on notice that if push came to shove in some confrontational environment that the nuclear option would be on the table,” she added.

The former president has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, though the Trump administration hewed to a similar course of responses, mainly sanctions, as Russia continued to destabilise Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea.

In fact, Mr Trump, who was impeached for trying to withhold military aid from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into the Bidens, has taken to praising Vladimir Putin as “smart” and a “genius” in recent days.

"Yesterday, I was asked by reporters if I thought President Putin was smart. I said, ‘of course he’s smart,’" Mr Trump told the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend.

The former president has implied the West should be taking a firmer position against Russia, which would likely involve a direct military conflict that experts warn could touch off a nuclear war.

“The Nato nations and indeed the world, as [Putin] looks over what’s happening strategically with no repercussions and threats whatsoever, they’re not so smart. They’re looking the opposite of smart. ‘If you take over Ukraine, we’re going to sanction you,’ they say. Sanctions? Well that’s a pretty weak statement,” Mr Trump continued at CPAC. “‘You mean I can take over a whole country and they’re going to sanction me? You mean they’re not going to blow us to pieces, at least psychologically?’”

This sort of thinking, according to Ms Hill, who testified during Mr Trump’s first impeachment, shows how the former president and large swathes of the Republican party along with him have fallen for Russia’s rhetoric around the invasion.

“ The fact that Putin managed to persuade Trump that Ukraine belongs to Russia, and that Trump would be willing to give up Ukraine without any kind of fight, that’s a major success for Putin’s information war,” Ms Hill continued in her Politico interview. “I mean he has got swathes of the Republican Party — and not just them, some on the left, as well as on the right — masses of the US public saying, “Good on you, Vladimir Putin,” or blaming Nato, or blaming the US for this outcome. This is exactly what a Russian information war and psychological operation is geared towards.”

Other top Republicans like Senator Tom Cotton of  Arkansas have also refused to condemn Mr Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin as a “genius” and “savvy”  leader.

Ms Hill, however, didn’t just blame Mr Trump for the current situation. US leaders dating back to George Bush have failed to craft an impactful policy that reckons with the expansion of Nato into Eastern Europe and Russia’s hostility to this development, she said.