![]() ambassador to Ukraine who testified against Trump in the impeachment trial, said in a recent TV appearance. ![]() "I think Putin saw how Trump viewed Ukraine … as a pawn,” Marie Yovanovitch, a former U.S. He sensed that opportunity with the election of cynical, norms-busting Trump, who at one point declared the North Atlantic Treaty Organization obsolete and has repeatedly, to this day, praised the Russian leader. It is impossible to know all of Putin’s thinking as he launched the ferocious war that has already claimed thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives and obliterated parts of the fledgling democracy that sought to strengthen ties with the West.īy most accounts, Putin stewed in grievances for years - the expansion of NATO farther east into his sphere of influence, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and a post-Cold War world order that marginalized Russia - waiting for an opportunity to build back his vision of a grand Russian superpower empire. And, according to former aides, Putin convinced Trump to accept his claim that Ukraine was part of Russia. The former KGB officer turned president ably manipulated Trump into publicly backing his denials of having interfered - to Trump’s benefit - in U.S. Numerous experts and current and former officials say Putin was emboldened by the Trump years.
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