In his new memoir, former U. S. National Security Advisor John Bolton paints a grim picture of U. S. President Donald J. Trump.
In Bolton’s account, Trump appears to be deeply biased against Ukraine and unleashes a profane tirade against the country when a U.S. delegation returns from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration in 2019.
Bolton’s book is both a confirmation and a revelation. We already knew that Trump is no fan of Ukraine. His actions have demonstrated this, and his former special representative to the country, Kurt Volker, admitted as much in an interview while he was still on the job. But Bolton’s memoir drives home how Trump’s feelings about Ukraine are on the verge of open hatred.
“I don’t want to have any fucking thing to do with Ukraine,” Trump rages, alleging that Kyiv tried to take him down. On Zelensky, Trump says, “I have no fucking interest in meeting with him.”
And Trump has tried to avoid doing anything to help Ukraine and never invited Zelensky to the White House. Trump contends that Bolton is making it all up. That seems unlikely for a career official with extensive ties to the Republican Party. Moreover, Bolton’s account jives with the broader picture. Trump is a full-time foe of Ukraine. He conditioned nearly $400 million of aid on the country opening a politically-motivated investigation into his opponent, ex- Vice President Joseph Biden — something Bolton confirms. He was willing to drag bipartisan support for Ukraine through the mud to improve his own re-election prospects.
He believed the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was behind Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election and used this as grounds not to support Ukraine, even when it was in U.S. interests to do so. Virtually every decision during Trump’s tenure has been driven by re-election concerns, Bolton writes.
Trump is strangely enamored with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Bolton believes that Putin can play Trump like a fiddle. The Moscow tyrant seems to have convinced the White House occupant of the absurd notion that Ukraine is an obstacle to friendlier U.S.-Russia relations.
Ukrainian leaders should take note. No one should expect anything good from him. Those Ukrainian politicians pushing the Ukrainian election interference conspiracy need to recognize that they are fueling a fire that was explicitly set to burn their own home down. To play Trump’s political games is not just bad policy; it is anti-Ukrainian.
While Trump remains in office, Ukraine’s leaders must proceed with extreme caution, aiming to benefit as much as they can from ties with the United States while not getting dragged into Trump’s dangerous domestic brawls. They must try not to set off this landmine while also recognizing that there is little that they can do to defuse it. And they must continue to build strong ties with other American officials and politicians, both Democrats and Republicans. Bipartisan support dating back decades has been Ukraine’s salvation.
With luck, it will get easier after November.
