In his first public appearance after the meeting between Washington and Moscow to begin negotiations on the Ukraine War -without the participation of Kiev -, US President Donald Trump has once again shown himself favorable to the demands of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Trump has endorsed Russia’s idea to celebrate elections in Ukraine and has assured that “probably” this month meets Putin. There are only 10 days left to finish February.
“I would say that when they want a place at the table [Ucrania]Wouldn’t the Ukrainians have to say that: ‘We have not had elections for a long time? That is not Russia. I say that and many other countries, ”said the president on Tuesday at the question of whether the United States would support Moscow’s idea about forcing elections in Ukraine. When he has done it, only a few hours had passed after the meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, between the US and Russian delegation.
In a press conference held from the Mar-A-Lago mansion, Trump has not ruled out the option and has even raised to link it with the right of Ukraine to be able to sit at the negotiating table with Russia. The Republican has criticized the Ukrainian President pointing out that he only has an approval of “4%”, without citing the source of that data. “We have a situation in which there have been no elections in Ukraine, where there is martial law, where the leader of Ukraine, hurts me to say it, but has only 4 % approval, and where a country has been reduced to debris, with the Most of the cities practically destroyed, ”said the president in the face of the approach to support an elections in Ukraine.
Although Trump has not said where he takes the number, the truth is that Zelenski’s popularity is on the soil compared to the approval index of around 90% he had three years ago, just after the war. The latest surveys, according to the New York Times At the end of January, they show that support for Zelenski has been reduced to almost 50%. The five -year mandate of the Ukrainian had to end the 2024, but the elections have been suspended by the martial law imposed by the war since it began in 2022.
In parallel, the political opposition in Ukraine has resurfaced again, animated by the perspective of a truce and the possibility of celebrating elections soon. Two candidates who competed with Zelenski in the 2019 elections, former president Petro O. Poroshenko and the former Minister Yulia Tymoshenko have been in contact with the Trump team.
At the beginning of February, Keith Kellogg, the special envoy of the White House to Ukraine and Russia, assured Reuters that they “must” celebrate presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Now it has been Trump who has weighted the same idea. On repeated occasions, Putin has noted that he does not believe that Zelenski is a legitimate leader because he has not renewed his mandate in the elections. On the other hand, according to Citaba Reuters, kyiv rejected at the time going to the polls alleging the volatility of the Ukraine situation and the possibility of Russian interference.
Trump, who now seems willing to defend the celebration of some elections, keeps the foreign aid frozen and is dismantling the USAID International Cooperation Agency. The agency had been managing a good part of the federal funds for foreign aid, the bulk of which the “governance” was allocated in 2023, where Ukraine was the main receiver. The celebration of hypothetical elections would be made without the supervision of this agency on the quality of the democratic process.
The president, who likes to be seen as a Deal Maker that always win, begins negotiations with Putin having made concessions without asking for anything in return. To affirm that the celebration of elections is of interest, when it is an idea that Russia also pursues, it is not the only alignment of the new US administration with Moscow. He has also made explicit that he is difficult to be able to end the war with the borders that Ukraine had before 2014 (which implies giving up Crimea) and has renounced kyiv’s entrance to NATO. In July 2024, the Atlantic Alliance, with the United States under the command of Joe Biden, made the adhesion of Ukraine to the group “irreversible”.
With all this, Trump is giving more strength to his Russian counterpart and rival after three years of western isolation. The meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, which has ended with the commitment between Washington and Moscow leaves Putin as the main interlocutor of a conflict that affects the future of Ukraine. Meanwhile, both Zelenski and European leaders have been completely outside the creation of the new negotiating groups.
At the end of the meeting, when journalists have asked the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio what will happen to the Russian sanctions, he replied that “these are a consequence of the conflict”, also insinuating that they will end them once the peace is resolved. Only when that time comes, has considered the EU partition. “The European Union will have to be at the table at some point because they have also imposed sanctions,” said Rubio.
The guilt, from Zelenski
Darts against Zelenski have been the same as on previous occasions. Trump has blamed him for the beginning of the war, obviating that it was Russia who invaded Ukraine in 2022, while he has attacked his predecessor, Joe Biden: “I could have reached an agreement for Ukraine that would have given them almost all the earth , everything, almost all of the earth, and no one would have died, no city would have been destroyed, and no. ”
The US president has minimized concerns about the fact that kyiv has been left out of the negotiating table in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, stating that they could have made a deal with Russia three years ago to prevent invasion. “Today I heard: ‘Oh, we weren’t invited.’ Well, they have been there for three years, they should have finished it … They should never have started it. They could have reached an agreement, ”said Trump.
On the approach made by France and the United Kingdom to send peace troops to Ukraine, Trump has said it would seem “good.” “If we have a peace agreement, I think that having troops there, from the point of view of Europe, would mean that we would not have to send any, because, you know, we are very far, but having troops there would be fine,” he said.
Musk is not Doge administrator
On Monday the White House affirmed in a judicial document that Elon Musk not only is not the Doge administrator, as he had implied, but is not even an employee. He said that, in reality, he is a White House employee. The publication of the document still generates more confusion about the possible conflicts of interest around the group that work that leads the billionaire. So far, Doge has assaulted all those departments and agencies that had open investigations against their companies.
When Tuesday has been asked about the issue of Trump, the president has replied that “Elon, for me he is a patriot.” “So, you know, you could call it an employee, you could call it a consultant, you could call it as you want, but it is a patriot,” Trump has followed, who has not clarified anything else about Musk’s position. Similarly, he has dispatched the question that many of Doge workers have worked in Musk companies: “I asked Elon: ‘Who are these people of Doge?’ And he said: ‘They are super brilliant people in computer science and love the country. It’s simple. ‘”
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