Trump belatedly wakes up to Putin's brutality

Washington Post

14-05-2025

President Donald Trump in recent weeks, according to the Wall Street Journal, asked advisers if they think Russian dictator Vladimir Putin 'has changed since Trump's last time in office, and expressed surprise at some of Putin's military moves, including bombing areas with children.'
You can almost excuse the question about Putin changing; Russia analysts have wondered whether Putin's long isolation during the pandemic altered his thinking and made him (even more) paranoid and reckless. Others have wondered whether Putin has some secret health issue affecting his actions and worldview.
But Trump is surprised at the brutality and callousness of Russia's military aggression? Surprised?
Now, I'm fairly certain that every morning the guy in the Oval Office gets this thing called the President's Daily Brief, packed to the gills with the best information that the $100-billion-per-year U.S. intelligence community can gather. Not that Trump appears to be particularly paying attention. In 2018, The Post reported that Trump 'rarely if ever reads the President's Daily Brief.' And according to the president's public schedule, he received just two of these in-person briefings per month in January, February and March, before settling into a more regular rhythm of once per week in April and May.
Still, the U.S. government has rooms full of experts who have studied Putin and his circle for decades. They could tell Trump plenty. Or the president could just read news coverage. How on Earth at this late date can Trump be surprised to hear about Russian military aggression targeting civilians, including children? This is the fourth year of a war that saw Russian soldiers committing atrocities and killing children from the start.
Last year, the United Nations estimated that on average, about 16 Ukrainian children were killed or wounded weekly. What has Trump been paying attention to in the past four years, scouting reports on Shedeur Sanders?
Then again, this is the administration where Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, goes into meetings with Putin and relies on the Russian government's translator. To call it amateur hour is an insult to amateurs. At least amateurs have an excuse.
There must be some curse that every U.S. president who deals with Putin will begin with jaw-dropping naïveté and give the Russian dictator the benefit of the doubt for far too long. Go all the way back to President George W. Bush describing his first meeting with the 'very straightforward and trustworthy' Putin in June 2001: 'I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.'
To offer a qualified defense of Bush, Putin had been Russian president for barely a year. But just how soulful did Bush think a former KGB lieutenant colonel was going to be? Russia's brutality in the wars in Chechnya, and Putin's role in the second one, was well known by then.
When Barack Obama became president, joined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, they believed we could rebuild a strong and friendly relationship Putin and the Russians — never mind the fact that Russia had just invaded the Republic of Georgia. Clinton unveiled the infamous 'reset button' — 'an emergency stop button that had been hastily pilfered from a swimming pool or Jacuzzi at the hotel,' according to Clinton's senior adviser Philippe Reines — which was supposed to say 'reset' in Russian but instead said 'overcharge.' (If you put that scene in a novel, people would complain it was an overdone metaphor.)
In a 2012 presidential debate with Mitt Romney, who warned about the Russian threat, Obama scoffed: 'The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War's been over for 20 years.' Oh, that silly, paranoid Romney! By January 2013, Clinton was wrapping up her time as secretary of state and concluded that the outreach to Putin wasn't working and a tougher line was needed, but she wrote in her memoir, 'not everyone agreed with my relatively harsh analysis.'
Then the country elected Trump, who rarely could hide his man-crush on the Russian dictator. Trump met with Putin in 2018, and his obsequious performance was so over the top that even longtime Trump allies such as Laura Ingraham, Newt Gingrich and the hosts of 'Fox & Friends' called him out over it.
Joe Biden was supposed to be the guy in the White House who got tough on Putin, but in his opening year, Biden and his team kept emphasizing that they wanted a 'stable, predictable relationship' with Putin. Biden declined to pursue Putin's personal wealth through sanctions, increased U.S. imports of Russian oil and acquiesced to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany — at least until somebody, most likely the Ukrainians, blew it up.
Then Biden let slip in January 2022 that a 'minor incursion' into Ukraine by the Russians might not spur a serious U.S. response. Putin invaded a month later, with his troops raping and murdering Ukrainian civilians a hallmark of the attack.
And now we get Trump 2.0, surprised that Putin could be so nonchalant about innocent civilian casualties.
Yes, Mr. President, the Russian military is perfectly willing to kill children to get what they want in this war. They bomb hospitals, they bomb schools, and either bad aim or sheer cruelty means their missiles and artillery bring roofs crashing down on elderly women, even in Russian territory. Trump is negotiating with a ruthless, remorseless foe — might be wise to start acting like it. This isn't just another real estate deal.