Akbar Shahid Ahmed: As Ukraine Shudders, Donald Trump Calls Vladimir Putin's Incursion 'Pretty Smart'

With millions of Ukrainians fearing for their lives Wednesday night amid reports of an imminent Russian invasion of their country, former President Donald Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “pretty smart” for sparking what could be the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II.

“He’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher and video footage obtained by the pro-Democratic group American Bridge. “He’s taking over a country, really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, just walking right in.”

The former U.S. commander in chief added, “This would have never happened, ever in a million years,” and said he understands Putin, seemingly suggesting that President Joe Biden is mismanaging the situation in Ukraine, where Putin has decided to support Russian-backed separatists’ bid to break up the country and has dispatched Russian troops. Biden this week imposed sanctions on Russian institutions and officials and warned far tougher action could follow.
“Now they laugh at us,” Trump said of U.S. adversaries, according to Goldmacher.

When Trump was president, he suspended military aid to Ukraine ― despite the Ukrainian government’s ongoing fight against the separatists ― to force the country to seek incriminating information about Biden’s son Hunter. He also told fellow world leaders that he recognized Russia’s claim to the Ukrainian region of Crimea, which Putin invaded in 2014 in a move that most countries view as a violation of international law, according to a BuzzFeed News report. And Trump repeatedly rejected U.S. intelligence reports that said Russia aided in his 2016 election victory, saying he believed Putin’s denial of any such plan.

Trump and many of his right-wing allies have repeatedly praised Moscow in recent days, blaming the Biden administration for the uptick in tensions in Europe. https://sports.yahoo.com/ukraine-shudders-donald-trump-calls-025811370.html

Dana Milbank: Republicans are so eager to see Biden fail that they’d let Putin succeed

After her fellow Republicans booted her from party leadership last year, Rep. Liz Cheney posed a question: “Do we hate our political adversaries more than we love our country?”

Now, with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, we are hearing Republicans answer that question in the affirmative.

The dictator is betting that division within the United States will sap American resolve and thereby sow disunity between the United States and European democracies — allowing him to crush Ukraine’s democracy and potentially others. And Republicans are giving him exactly what he wants. They are so determined to see President Biden fail that they would let President Putin succeed.

On Tuesday, hours before Biden was to deliver his State of the Union address, Rep. Michael McCaul (Tex.), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, likened Biden’s actions toward Russia to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler, saying, “We have a weak president, and he’s creating a very dangerous world.”

Also Tuesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), the No. 3 House GOP leader, said Biden “failed to engage in meaningful deterrence against Russian aggression,” and asserted that “the war on Ukraine represents one of the greatest foreign policy failures in modern history.”

Rep. Steve Scalise (La.), the House GOP whip, blamed Biden for giving “leverage to Vladimir Putin” and “billions of dollars in his pocket to finance this war against Ukraine.”

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) condemned Biden for failing to deter the invasion, saying, “If Ukraine had just half of the weapons that were left in Afghanistan … I imagine Putin would not have entered.”

And Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), head of the Senate Republican Conference, said Biden’s “policies from Day One have enabled, emboldened Vladimir Putin to do what he has done,” adding that it’s “as if Vladimir Putin were Joe Biden’s secretary of energy.”

Some Republican candidates have even been fundraising off calling Biden “weak” on Ukraine.

The relentless assault no doubt undermines Biden — but it also weakens America. Biden’s response — the U.S. response — can be only as strong as Republicans allow. Suppose, for example, that Biden were to follow the advice of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and slap sanctions on Russia’s energy sector. Would Republicans tell supporters that this necessary fight against Putin will require sacrifice in the form of higher prices — and potentially much more, if the conflict escalates? Of course not: They would blame Biden for the added inflation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/01/republicans-biden-fail-putin-succeed/

Robin Wright: Putin’s Historic Miscalculation May Make Him a War Criminal

In the eyes of the world and almost certainly history, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday was an epic miscalculation drawing comparisons to Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein for cold-blooded aggression that could challenge the world order and change its borders. The Russian leader appeared almost delusional in a pre-dawn speech from the Kremlin announcing a “special military operation” to “protect” Donbas, the eastern region where Russian-backed separatists have waged a war for eight years. Putin, instead, immediately ordered Russian tanks into Ukraine and air strikes on the capital and more than a dozen cities in a country of forty million people. “Peace on our continent has been shattered,” the nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. “We now have war in Europe on a scale and of a type we thought belonged to history.” Putin’s “reckless” attack risks “countless innocent lives,” Stoltenberg warned.

Putin is now, at minimum, a pariah condemned by leaders across the world. “Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war,” President Biden said in a speech to the nation announcing new sanctions on Russian financial institutions and élites. He charged that Putin “has much larger ambitions than Ukraine.” “He wants to, in fact, reëstablish the former Soviet Union,” Biden said. “His ambitions are completely contrary to the place where the rest of the world has arrived.” In one of a flurry of statements reflecting outrage globally, the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, called Russia’s act “barbaric” and dismissed its justifications as “cynical.” In a tweet, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said he was appalled by Putin’s “horrific” decision to pursue “a path of bloodshed and destruction.” Putin’s military offensive put him on the diplomatic defensive. The French President, Emmanuel Macron, called the attack “a turning point” in history that will have a profound and lasting impact across the continent.

Putin may now also qualify as a war criminal, according to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. War crimes include willful killing and extensive destruction of property “not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.” The term has been inconsistently interpreted and unevenly applied to leaders or countries—including to the U.S. and its officials—who have initiated aggression for reasons considered unjustified. In Ukraine, Putin’s “war of choice” has clearly violated international law through his invasion of a sovereign country and attempt to oust its government. After an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting, on Wednesday, the Secretary-General, António Guterres, warned that the Russian invasion could be the “worst war” of the century “with consequences not only devastating for Ukraine, not only tragic for the Russian Federation” but for the entire world. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/putins-historic-miscalculation-may-make-him-a-war-criminal

LA Times Editorial: The U.S. couldn’t stop Russia from attacking Ukraine — but it can make it pay

The most conspicuous victims of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are the people who will lose their lives in defending their country against a brutal (and nuclear-armed) neighbor. But Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a many-pronged attack — an audacious operation the United States predicted but was unable to prevent — is also a devastating assault on international norms and potentially a harbinger of a wider war in Europe.

This week’s attack fully justifies the significant sanctions the U.S. and its allies are moving to impose on Russia. Sadly, it’s not clear whether these measures will cause Russia to relent in its aggression against Ukraine. They may, however, put Putin on notice that Russia’s economy, and its “corrupt billionaires,” will pay a heavy price for this act of aggression — and an even steeper cost if Russia were to menace a member state of NATO.

The sanctions were designed to “maximize the long-term impact on Russia,” Biden said, noting that the measures would “strike a blow to their ability to continue to modernize their military” and “be a major hit to Putin’s long-term strategic ambitions.”

We can hope, as Biden surely does, that by punishing Russia economically the U.S. and its allies can pressure Putin into cutting short his war in Ukraine. But Putin knew an invasion would likely result in such sanctions, and he attacked anyway. (Indeed, in a rambling, bitter speech on Monday the Russian president described the sanctions as “blackmail” and said their only purpose was to “restrain the development of Russia.”)

But Biden was thinking not only about Ukraine when he said Thursday that new sanctions would rein in “Putin’s long-term strategic ambitions.” He stressed that “we’re also taking steps to defend our NATO allies, particularly in the east.”

It would be ironic if Russian aggression against Ukraine, supposedly motivated by a fear that Kyiv might someday join NATO, resulted in greater solidarity among the countries that already are part of the alliance. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-24/russia-putin-ukraine-war-u-s

Maureen Dowd: Rash Putin Razes Ukraine

Now comes the insanity of Vladimir Putin, the former K.G.B. officer who has been feeling humiliated and furious ever since the red banner of the Soviet Union came down from the Kremlin 30 years ago. This demonic little man with the puffy Botoxy face has been watching too many episodes of “The Americans” during his Covid isolation.

He decided to indulge his nostalgia for the days when American children had to practice diving under their school desks; when James Bond sparred with the Soviet assassin Rosa Klebb, sprouting a knife in her shoe. He longs for the shadowy era when Moscow was a menacing superpower, not a withering autocracy.

To feed Cold War dreams, Putin spun a nuclear nightmare. He invaded a peaceful democracy, Ukraine, vowing consequences “you have never seen in your entire history” to those who interfered.

As President Biden marshaled world opinion against Putin, Trump offered nauseating praise of this murderer. Like the thug he so admires, Trump let his fragile ego and world-class delusions distort reality. Trump politicized the Covid response in a dangerous way. And, unable to accept the designation of Loser, he helped spread the lies and misinformation that led to Jan. 6. In a breathtaking betrayal, the president of the United States tried to scuttle the democracy he was running; Trump abandoned the Constitution he was sworn to protect.

But if President Biden got no backup on helping Ukraine from the quisling Trump, he did get a boost Friday from his inspiring Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who reminded us, “The United States of America is the greatest beacon of hope and democracy the world has ever known.”

As for Putin’s Napoleonic megalomania, perhaps the Russia expert Nina Khrushcheva summed him up best in a Vanity Fair podcast: “He’s a small man of five-six saying he’s five-seven.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/opinion/rash-putin-razes-ukraine.html

LZ Granderson: Trump’s adulation for Putin has gone way too far

Until the 1990s, being “a counterweight against Soviet influence” was the hallmark of U.S. foreign policy. We even called our Russia strategy “containment.”

So why is a former president of the United States rooting for Russia to be uncontained? Yes, as Russian forces surrounded Ukraine on Wednesday, preparing to invade on Thursday, Donald Trump praised the Russian president as being “pretty smart” for “taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people.”

And why are Republican leaders — the same folks who like to throw the word “communist” around like a poisoned dart — remaining silent about this bizarre and stunning endorsement of the Kremlin?

Sure, I get it, they hate President Biden, they want to own the libs, all of that. But what exactly is the endgame here? Which aspect of the American dream does Trump represent when he responds to Russian forces encircling Ukraine with “this is genius”?

But no matter what happens between Ukraine and Russia, Putin will still be Putin and Trump will be Trump. They aren’t hiding who they are. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-26/donald-trump-praise-vladimir-putin-ukraine-invasion

David Remnick: Putin’s Bloody Folly in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin delivered a bitter and delusional speech from the Kremlin this week, arguing that Ukraine is not a nation and Ukrainians are not a people. His order to execute a “special military operation” came shortly afterward. The professed aim is to “demilitarize and de-Nazify” this supposedly phantasmal neighbor of forty million people, whose government is so pro-Nazi that it is led by a Jewish President who was elected with seventy per cent of the vote.

Like many aging autocrats, Putin has, over time, remained himself, only more so: more resentful, more isolated, more repressive, more ruthless. He operates in an airless political environment, free of contrary counsel. His stagecraft—seating foreign visitors at the opposite end of a twenty-foot-long table, humiliating security chiefs in front of television cameras—is a blend of “Triumph of the Will” and “The Great Dictator.” But there is nothing comic in the performance of his office. As Putin spills blood across Ukraine and threatens to destabilize Europe, Russians themselves stand to lose immeasurably. The ruble and the Russian stock market have cratered. But Putin does not care. His eyes are fixed on matters far grander than the well-being of his people. He is in full command of the largest army in Europe, and, as he has reminded the world, of an immense arsenal of nuclear weapons. In his mind, this is his moment, his triumphal historical drama, and damn the cost. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/07/putins-bloody-folly-in-ukraine

Emily Tamkin: How the American Right Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Russia

Vladimir Putin delivered a bitter and delusional speech from the Kremlin this week, arguing that Ukraine is not a nation and Ukrainians are not a people. His order to execute a “special military operation” came shortly afterward. The professed aim is to “demilitarize and de-Nazify” this supposedly phantasmal neighbor of forty million people, whose government is so pro-Nazi that it is led by a Jewish President who was elected with seventy per cent of the vote.

Supporting Mr. Putin, as well as other authoritarian leaders, is yet another way in which the political right is weaponizing culture wars to further divide Americans.

Part of this new paradigm is that foreign policy is now a partisan matter. In 2016, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary offered an endorsement of then-candidate Donald Trump, admiration that was later returned. Mr. Putin’s Russia reportedly meddled in the American election in 2016, and the Russian president has admitted that he wanted Mr. Trump to win. Those amicable relationships trickled down to the Republican voting population, which shifted its views on Mr. Putin’s favorability, which soared from a mere 10 percent in July 2014 to 37 percent in December 2016. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll from January of this year found that 62 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents consider Vladimir Putin a stronger leader than Joe Biden.

“Strong” may be the key word here. In this construction, a strong leader is apparently one who cracks down on opposition, cultural and political, and does not concede. This idea then dovetails with right-wing ideas that liberal elites are actively corroding deeply held traditional values — including traditional gender roles. For those who spend a fair amount of airtime worrying about the emasculation of men, the kind of strength portrayed by Mr. Putin — who on Monday convened his top security officials and demanded they publicly stand and support him — is perhaps appealing. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/opinion/ukraine-putin-steve-bannon.html]

Aaron Blake: The tide has turned against the Russia apologists — and the neutrals

For the better part of five-plus years, Donald Trump attempted to inject some nuance into the GOP’s posture toward Russia. It was partially a strategy of necessity — given how Russia’s 2016 election interference loomed over his presidency — and partially a symptom of both Trump’s penchant for provocation and admiration for authoritarians. But the result was the same: As Vladimir Putin inched toward an invasion of Ukraine, he had plenty of isolationists, conspiracy theorists, rationalizers and even apologists in prominent positions on the American right arguing for averting our eyes.

Their argument, though, has clearly run into reality and fallen badly out of favor. And many of those who downplayed or dismissed Russia’s threat have been forced to reckon with the rather black-and-white view that has now registered with the American people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/28/tide-has-turned-against-russia-apologists-neutrals/

Anne Applebaum:The Impossible Suddenly Became Possible

As it turns out, nations are not pieces in a game of Risk. They do not, as some academics have long imagined, have eternal interests or permanent geopolitical orientations, fixed motivations or predictable goals. Nor do human beings always react the way they are supposed to react. Last week, nobody who was analyzing the coming war in Ukraine imagined that the personal bravery of the Ukrainian president and his emotive calls for sovereignty and democracy could alter the calculations of foreign ministers, bank directors, business executives, and thousands of ordinary people. Few imagined that the Russian president’s sinister television appearances and brutal orders could alter, in just a few days, international perceptions of Russia.

And yet all of that has happened. Volodymyr Zelensky’s courage has moved people, even the hard-bitten CEOs of oil companies, even dull diplomats accustomed to rote pronouncements. Vladimir Putin’s paranoid ranting, meanwhile, has frightened even people who were lauding his “savvy” just a few days ago. He is not, in fact, someone you can do business with, as so many in Berlin, Paris, London, and Washington falsely believed; he is a cold-blooded dictator happy to murder hundreds of thousands of neighbors and impoverish his nation, if that’s what it takes to remain in power. However the war ends—and many scenarios are still imaginable—we already live in a world with fewer illusions. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putins-war-dispelled-the-worlds-illusions/623335/