Donald Trump lit up the internet with praise for Vladimir Putin as the Russian president sends troops into Ukraine, congratulating Putin for what he called a “savvy” move and a “stroke of genius.”
In an interview held after his Truth Social app went live, the former New York real estate tycoon sides with the Russian president against the Biden administration.
Intelligence experts fear that, after sending “peacekeeping” troops into breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, Putin may launch an all-out invasion of his smaller neighbor before it can turn toward Europe and successfully break free from Moscow’s sphere of influence, an assessment Trump appeared to share.
“It’s deeply disturbing for the former president to bandwagon and cheerlead for probably the world’s most belligerent authoritarian,” said Alexander Vindman, a Ukrainian immigrant and retired U.S. lieutenant colonel who testified against Trump at his first impeachment trial.
Trump told The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show that when Putin characterized the deployment of military forces to Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region as a mission to maintain the peace, he said to himself, “This is genius.”
“How smart is that? And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper, that’s the strongest peace force—we could use that on our southern border,” Trump said, referring to American immigration politics and the border the U.S. shares with Mexico.
“There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen—they’re gonna keep peace all right,” he said.
The 45th president, who became the only officeholder to ever be unsuccessfully impeached twice, said he knew Putin’s primary interest was always to control the whole of Ukraine.
“I could see that he wanted it. I used to ask him—we used to talk about it at length,” he told the show, adding Biden’s political weakness would soon embolden Chinese President Xi Jinping to take over Taiwan
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