Is Trump a bigger threat to Ukraine than Putin in 2024?

Is Trump a bigger threat to Ukraine than Putin in 2024?

This Ukrainian Soldier is training to defeat Vladimir Putin’s Army but Russia’s leader isn’t the only threat Donald Trump could get into Power once again a man who called Vladimir Putin a genius after the invasion and it was constantly questioned us support for Ukraine at the start of the war the West

Backing for Ukraine was almost unanimous now politicians in Washington hold aid for Ukraine to Ransom and the American public are losing interest in this fight against Russia all of this can be traced back to one man and his obsession with power not Putin Trump from soldiers to Military and political experts we’ve

Spoken to the message is clear Ukraine may find themselves really completely cut loose and at the mercy of Russia Trump 2.0 would be Unchained we’ll explore how the influence of trump and his followers is already shaping the conflict and why the next 12 months of fighting both in the battlefields of

Ukraine and in the corridors of power in the US will decide how this war ends when people talk about Western support for Ukraine this right here is part of the package weeks of intensive military training in the English Countryside some of these ukrainians are learning to hold a gun for the first

Time others have already seen action I know that I’m going to win this war you’re going to win the war I’m sure yeah sure about this you can’t fult their confidence but while Russian soldiers are relying on decisions made in Moscow Ukrainian soldiers are arguably at the mercy of both leaders

And voters in the West espe the United States which goes to the polls next November that election will almost certainly see Joe Biden take on Donald Trump in the race to be the country’s next president and time and again Trump has made it clear what will happen in

Ukraine if he’s reelected I will have the War settled in one day 24 hours but what does Trump actually mean what he would do is offer or Force Ukraine to hand over territory to Putin and I think he believes that Putin is someone he can do a deal with that’s Phillips O’Brien a

Military historian who’s been analyzing the Ukraine war since it began he says so far it’s been a huge win for the US on the international stage it’s rejuvenated NATO and it’s weakened an enemy Russia but he believes the prospect of trump 2.0 and the influence he’s having on Washington right now is

Putting everything at risk Trump looks at foreign policy as he looks in politics is a way for personal benefit NATO doesn’t matter us allies don’t matter Ukraine doesn’t matter best to do a deal that serves Donald Trump’s interest and Trump’s interests have not served Ukraine well in the past thank

You very much while in the white house he was accused of having a cozy relationship with Putin and don’t forget that Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 involved Ukraine it’s claimed he threatened to withhold aid from zelinsky’s government unless the Ukrainian president dug up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter president Trump

Denied any wrongdoing and he was cleared by a republican controlled Senate but neither Trump nor keev has forgotten the incident when Russia launched its fullscale Invasion with Joe Biden in the white house there was near unanimous bipartisan support for funding Ukraine’s defense though not from Trump he’s questioned us support for Ukraine from

The start and his biggest supporters have followed his lead once Trump starts hitting on a theme the whole of the kind of right begins to take it up he is not somebody uh who kind of is instinctively Pro democracy on the cont I think he’s instinctively Pro authoritarian so in

That sense he admires Putin Gideon rakman who’s written a book about strong men leaders which is how he describes Trump and Putin was recently in Washington speaking to White House insiders about the war part of the sort of sense of dread that I picked up was

The sense that things are very much on the edge if Trump comes in then I think America’s allies all over the world would suddenly feel very vulnerable the chances of a second Trump presidency look to be increasing at the same time since the end of 2022 support for

Ukraine in the US has been in Decline the latest polling suggests nearly half of Americans think their government is spending too much supporting the fight with Russia and that number is significantly higher among Republican voters emboldened by Trump’s surge in the polls his backers in the Republican

Party are seizing control of the agenda on Capitol Hill and this Resurgence of Maga politics brings potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine’s war effort president zinsky are you confident you can persuade Congress to give you the aid take the $60 billion Aid package that President Biden wants

Congress to send to Ukraine in 2022 a bill like this would have sailed through but now Republicans are telling anyone who will listen why they disagree with paying for the war let’s not tell them that Ukraine is winning when it’s not the Border must be secured before we

Even talk about anything for Ukraine I don’t give a crap whether he bring zinsky here or not if we don’t get this funding through by January we could be talking about how Joe Biden lost the war in Ukraine and unfortunately that would suit the Republicans very well gives

Them a kind of a perverse incentive to block this Aid magga Republicans deny this is just a way to attack Joe Biden they say they want the money spent on deterring China or tackling problems at the border with Mexico basically that America is spending too much on Ukraine

But is it too much and how does it compare to other countries as the Republican senator Mitt Romney has pointed out it’s only a fraction of US military spending to decimate the Russian military with 5% of your military budget strikes me as an extraordinarily wise investment and it’s

Not even as much as Europe and the EU is pledging the key difference though is that the majority of what the US has provided is military support and it’s America’s Advanced Weaponry that Ukraine needs more than anything else if they want to push Russia

Back if us Aid dries up then Putin has a huge chance to turn what could have been a disastrous War into a big win and he knows it Russia has turned itself into a war economy it’s also got in a lot of new Weaponry from Iran and North Korea and

The West hasn’t responded to that we have not moved even to a semi wartime footing Putin’s calculation once the initial Invasion went wrong was that the West would eventually lose interest he must be thinking that that prediction that bet may be about to pay off the

Mere Prospect of a trump return seems to be motivating Russia to sustain its War Ukraine is desperate for the US to bat them and Biden couldn’t be clearer about what’s at stake if they don’t Ukraine’s freedom is on the line if we don’t stop Putin it’ll endanger the freedom of

Everyone almost everywhere but Russia hasn’t won yet there’s still huge support for keev in most of Europe Hungary was the only country standing in the way of the latest block of EU funding for Ukraine and Brussels says it will find a way around Victor orban’s veto EU leaders have also now agreed to

Start talks about Ukraine one day joining the European Union while in the US Democrats almost totally back Ukraine Trump is Riding High in the polls right now and yet he’s also facing four criminal trials that could derail his presidential campaign and then even if Trump does win that doesn’t mean he can

Do whatever he wants there are still checks and balances on the president’s Powers Trump experienced this as in his first term as he faced resistance from Democrats in Congress the FBI and even moderates in his own Administration but there are fears that Trump won’t allow that to happen again there were people

Around Trump in the first Administration that didn’t always share his very dangerous and destabilizing instincts one assumes in the second Administration that’s gone Trump would put some pretty radical figures in charge of the defense department the CIA arguably moving towards authoritarianism in some ways one assumes that Trump 2.0 would be

Unchained that he would simply do what he wanted to do in which case all precedent is out political turmoil in the US and American democracy diminished on the world stage exactly what Putin and America’s enemies are hoping for if you go to the uh beginning of 2025 you

Could have Ukraine defeated a rampant Russia vengeful Russia and an America that looks like it’s no longer prepared to protect Europe so it would be a victory for Putin from a situation in which his army is really struggling these Ukrainian soldiers training in the English Countryside have

Not lost hope though because they are clear about what they’re fighting For what’s clear is that the next 12 months are vital for Ukraine and their soldiers know it and they’re doing everything they can to Liberate the country the big question though is this will this kind of armor support from the West that’s been sent to the front line

Along with all of that training that we’ve seen here will that still be there right to the end of this war whenever that may be that will almost certainly depend on who wins the race for the White House in 2024

Donald Trump’s followers on Capitol Hill are already disrupting Ukraine’s war effort against Vladimir Putin’s Russia by blocking US aid – but what happens if Trump wins the presidential election next year?

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From soldiers, to military and political experts we’ve spoken to, it’s clear the prospect of Trump 2.0 is helping Vladimir Putin turn what could have been a disastrous war into a potential victory – and the next 12 months of fighting, both on the battlefields of Ukraine and the corridors of power in the US, will decide how the conflict ends.

#ukraine #ukrainewar #russia #russiaukrainewar #putin #zelensky #biden #trump #uspolitics

Reporter: Kiran Moodley
Producers: Ka Yee Mak / Calum Fraser
Graphics: Ian Watkins

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