Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump already
has a contentious relationship with Kiev, irking the Ukrainian public and
government officials with his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Moscow-friendly views on the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern
Ukraine.
Now, invited to meet with Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week,
Trump’s campaign didn’t even bother to send Kiev an RSVP.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian presidential
administration told Foreign Policy they
reached out to both Trump and his Democratic rival, former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, to meet with Poroshenko. According to the official, only
Clinton said yes, sitting down with the president on Monday. The Trump campaign
did not give a clear answer.
Trump’s campaign did not provide comment about the
so-far snub by the time of publication. But according to the candidate’s public schedule, he’s already jetted to North Carolina and has plans
to be in Ohio and Pennsylvania the rest of the week, not in New York, where the
U.N. meeting ends on Sept. 26, the day of the first presidential debate.
Clinton met Monday with Poroshenko and they discussed
the importance of continued sanctions imposed on Moscow after Russia’s invasion
and annexation of Crimea in 2014. According to a release from Poroshenko’s office, he thanked Clinton for
her continued support of Ukraine in the ongoing conflict, and the leaders
agreed that “solidarity with Ukraine is important in resisting the Russian
aggression.”
Trump, on the other hand, has appeared at times to
invite Russia’s bellicose behavior towards Kiev.
The New York businessman, whose hotel overshadows
Turtle Bay and the world leaders gathered there this week, has raised plenty of
eyebrows and alarm around the world with his controversial or incendiary
foreign policy pronouncements, but nowhere more so than in Ukraine.
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC
News in late July, Trump said that Putin “is not going into Ukraine,” despite
widespread proof that Russian troops moved into the Crimean peninsula and
eastern Ukraine two years earlier. When Stephanopoulos challenged Trump, the
GOP candidate responded by saying, “OK, well, he’s there in a certain way, but
I’m not there yet,” before adding that “that whole part of the world is a mess
under Obama.”
The comments drew widespread criticism in the United
States and Trump later took to Twitter to clarify his confusing remarks, tweeting that he meant Putin would not go into Ukraine
again if he were president. But the comments had already drawn ire in Kiev,
with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk calling Trump’s statement “a breach of moral and
civilized principles.” Ukrainian ambassador to Washington Valeriy Chaly told FP at the time that Trump’s comments raised fears
in Kiev that if elected he would change U.S. policy towards the country by
cooperating more closely with Moscow and “open a Pandora’s box of bigger
instability in the world.”
In late February 2014, shortly after the ouster of
former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow deployed troops without
insignia into Crimea and later annexed the peninsula in March 2014. The Kremlin
also sent troops into eastern Ukraine to fight alongside pro-Russian separatists
as fighting began in April 2014. Despite repeated denials from the Kremlin, the
presence of Russian troops on Ukrainian territory has been confirmed multiple
times and been widely tracked through Russian soldiers’ accounts on social
media networks.
Trump has routinely praised Putin throughout the 2016
election cycle, complimenting the Russian president as a “strong leader” who is
“doing a better job
than Obama.” The
GOP nominee has also incorrectly said throughout his campaign, most recently at
NBC’s Commander-in-Chief forum, that Putin called him a “brilliant leader” and
a “genius.” In fact, the Russian president’s comments from December 2015 have
been widely mistranslated, with Putin even clarifying that he called Trump “a colorful person.” The
Russian leader, however, has voiced support for Trump’s calls to rebuild ties
between Moscow and Washington.
Trump’s aides intervened in the drafting of the
Republican Party platform this summer and successfully lobbied to replace
language on providing lethal aid to Ukraine with “appropriate assistance,” a
move widely seen as an overture to Moscow. Poroshenko has a long-standing
request with the Obama administration for lethal assistance that so far has not
been granted.
At other points in his presidential campaign, Trump
has suggested he won’t step in if Russia invades a NATO ally —
whom by treaty the U.S. is obligated to defend — unless they’ve ponied up
to his satisfaction. He also said he might pull the U.S. military out of the
security alliance altogether, statements that Eastern European allies say have
already encouraged a resurgent Moscow to push back even harder to restore its
lost empire.
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