Perhaps Donald Trump is not quite the chump the Kremlin has taken him for. Trump is ‘pissed off’ with Russia over its foot-dragging over a ceasefire in Ukraine, he told NBC’s Kristen Welker. More, Vladimir Putin’s demands that Ukraine’s government be replaced with a transitional one as the price for peace negotiations made Trump ‘very angry.’
If Putin has any sense at all, he’ll take those words very seriously. Because like an orange version of the Incredible Hulk, the Kremlin won’t like Trump when he’s angry.
Over the last month Putin has worn his trademark smirking smile at all his public appearances. And well he might, as the new US administration seemed to spontaneously have switched sides from Kyiv to Moscow. Senior Trump officials began to parrot all kinds of Kremlin narratives over Ukraine not being a real country, about the legitimacy of referendums conducted in occupied territories after the 2022 invasion, and about the ‘huge upside’ of future cooperation with Russia.
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