THE GUARDIAN: ‘Kremlin whisperers’ have the president’s ear and dissenters are few – but a thin skin and self-interest are also at play
Donald Trump’s tarring of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” who is to blame for the war with Russia, plunging Ukraine into a Darwinian struggle for its very existence, landed like a bombshell on the diplomatic landscape. But it did not come out of nowhere.
The US president has left the already badly frayed western alliance in disarray with a devastating social media attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, just hours after he had already implicitly blamed Kyiv for Russia’s invasion.
After much of what he said appeared to echo Kremlin talking points, including falsehoods about Zelenskyy’s popularity being at 4% (a recent poll put it at 57%), Ukraine’s president attributed it to Trump being trapped in a Russian “disinformation bubble”.
In fact, Trump may be the author of his own misconceptions about Ukraine – or at least responsible for having built the bubble himself, by surrounding himself with prominent figures who have often seemed to echo the Russian line. » | Robert Tait in Washington | Thursday, February 20, 2025
