The former White House Russia advisor, Fiona Hill, said that President Donald Trump's foreign policy emboldened Russia to the point where it feels it can invade Ukraine.
Hill, an expert on Russia who advised Trump, addressed the contrasts between Trump's approach to foreign policy and President Joe Biden's.
She said Trump's foreign policy had not been driven by concern about the US national interest, but by personal interests and impulses.
"There's no Team America for Trump," Hill said. "Not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second."
Hill recalled Trump's praise for
as well as his disdain for NATO. She also mentioned his campaign to pressure Ukraine for manufactured dirt about Biden in the run-up to the 2020 election. The Ukraine pressure campaign saw Trump threaten to withhold military aid from the nation, which led to his first impeachment.
"All this did was say to Russia that Ukraine was a playground," Hill said, drawing a direct line to events today, as Russia has amassed a huge military force around Ukraine, prompting fears in the US and European countries that a military strike is imminent.
, rebutting conspiracy theories promoted by Trump allies that sought to excuse Russia of blame for interfering in the 2016 election, and explaining how Russia was seeking to sow domestic discord in the US.
She has gone on to speak critically of Trump's approach to foreign policy, and has said there were close parallels between how
Hill said in the CNN interview that Biden had managed to pull NATO allies together for a display of resolve in the face of Russian aggression, but warned that the crisis would likely drag on for some time, as Russia seeks to slowly exert pressure on Ukraine.
"The real challenge is keeping everyone together for a considerable period," Hill concluded. "It's going to go on a long time."
As I have seen over two decades of observing Mr. Putin, and analyzing his moves, his actions are purposeful and his choice of this moment to throw down the gauntlet in Ukraine and Europe is very intentional. He has a personal obsession with history and anniversaries. December 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Russia lost its dominant position in Europe. Mr. Putin wants to give the United States a taste of the same bitter medicine Russia had to swallow in the 1990s. He believes that the United States is currently in the same predicament as Russia was after the Soviet collapse: grievously weakened at home and in retreat abroad. He also thinks NATO is nothing more than an extension of the United States. Russian officials and commentators routinely deny any agency or independent strategic thought to other NATO members. So, when it comes to the alliance, all of Moscow’s moves are directed against Washington.
In the 1990s, the United States and NATO forced Russia to withdraw the remnants of the Soviet military from their bases in Eastern Europe, Germany and the Baltic States. Mr. Putin wants the United States to suffer in a similar way. From Russia’s perspective, America’s domestic travails after four years of Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency, as well as the rifts he created with U.S. allies and then America’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, signal weakness. If Russia presses hard enough, Mr. Putin hopes he can strike a new security deal with NATO and Europe to avoid an open-ended conflict, and then it will be America’s turn to leave, taking its troops and missiles with it.
