NPR: President Trump's cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin marks a significant departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy.
For years, U.S. policies have been in place to isolate Russia over its full scale invasion of Ukraine, but the Trump administration is now poised to make a deal with the Kremlin to end the war without Ukraine having much of a say.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz held talks with Russian officials last week to begin hammering out a Russia-Ukraine peace deal. Ukrainian officials say they were not invited.
Meanwhile, President Trump is falsely blaming Ukraine, a U.S. ally, for starting the war three years ago. Even before these events, Trump was already showing willingness to treat other allies adversarially, including those from NATO – a partnership formed after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
Historian and writer for The Atlantic Anne Applebaum says this departure from traditional U.S. foreign policy is "radical" given that Russia is a daily threat to the rest of Europe. » | Leila Fadel, Arezou Rezvani, Obed Manuel | Monday, February 24, 2025
Two Trump officials decline to say Russia started the war in Ukraine: In recent days, Trump has upended the prior U.S. position by falsely calling Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” and blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion. »
