U.S. President Donald Trump sees Russia’s economic weakness and has started politically trolling Putin, recognizing his vulnerability.
This opinion was expressed by former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin during a broadcast on Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty).
According to Klimkin, it’s still too early to say that Trump took Putin’s refusal to end the war as a personal affront.
“We’ll see more of this in the coming weeks and months. I think Trump has not given up on the idea of making a ‘big deal’ with Putin and Russia... He also clearly understands that he has time, while for Putin, time is definitely not on his side,” the diplomat noted.
He added that unfortunately, time is also not working in Ukraine’s favor—but Russia’s economy is weakening, and Trump fully understands that Putin can’t keep going indefinitely.
“Putin is now at a critical crossroads—he needs to show that he’s still capable of something, not just to himself, but to his elites… and to everyone else. If Trump pressures him—‘let’s stop, cease fire, talk’—then what will Putin say internally? ‘I didn’t achieve any of the goals of the so-called Special Military Operation’?... That’s why he’s trying to push forward as much as possible while he still can,” Klimkin said.
In his opinion, Putin’s stubbornness doesn’t mean he’s trolling Trump in return.
“To me, it’s Trump who has started trolling Putin… Trump sees that Putin is failing to achieve any major breakthroughs. Putin himself believes in his success and somehow thinks everyone will eventually bend to his will. But that won’t happen, because Europe has, first of all, started to feel fear, and second, understands that at some point it will need to worry about its own security… As of today, Putin understands that his economy is limping, and that sooner or later he’ll have to respond to what is essentially the beginning of a new arms race. And Trump feels he’s in a strong position,” the former minister concluded.
