After years of warming to Russia and its leader Putin, Republicans found new praise for the Ukrainians fighting back against the invasion by their neighbor.
AdvertisementThose themes continued during Trump’s presidency — mainstream Republicans mocking the Democrats’ obsession with Russia, and conservatives sometimes taking Putin’s side in culture wars. The Kremlin’sof “traditional moral and spiritual values,” as Russia’s Ministry of Culture put it last month, was praised by some right-wing leaders in western Europe and in the United States.
“I stand as the only President of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country,” Trump said. He recast his 2019to Zelensky, with its conditions on military aid, as evidence that he strengthened Ukraine against Russian aggression. George Santos, a candidate for Congress in New York, said that Putin had “played the long game” during the Trump presidency, realizing that it would be a mistake to move on Ukraine until a weaker commander in chief took office. But it was also a mistake, he said, for Americans to venerate one country and demonize the other.