Trump-Zelensky meeting - 5 years ago
With Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky meeting in New York on Sept. 27, 2024, here's a look back at the call that triggered Trump's first impeachment. Here's the Sept. 27. 2019 Kyiv Post cover.
Here’s Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner’s summary of the Sept. 27, 2019, edition, which can be read here in PDF form.
"Under Pressure: Trump-Zelensky Phone Call Starts Impeachment Probe"
It looks like U.S. President Donald J. Trump is in trouble again, and his arrogant demands/blackmail of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the reason why. We have complete coverage - 4 pages worth.
"World in Ukraine: Germany" is our special feature ahead of German Unity Day on Oct. 3. Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner interviews the new ambassador sent from Berlin, Anna Feldhusen, to go with our business and cultural coverage of this important relationship.
Russia has persecuted the last remaining Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Kremlin-occupied Crimea.
And much more.
trump is so obviously a Putin puppet, and trump loves murderous dictators. Let's hope we can make trump go away forever in November.
For all the brash Trump statements on Ukraine, I find it increasingly difficult, sadly, to see a resolution to the war in Ukraine without China playing a key role. Most of China’s proposals, indeed all its statements thus far, have been feints. This includes the most recent China-Brazil proposal that Zelensky spoke about at the UNGA. Beijing knows very well that such proposals won’t wash.
Much depends upon how long China wants Putin to stay in power, and stay strong and dominant within Russia. China doesn't want any leader in Moscow who might even come to have a semblance of understanding with the US and the West. China will always prefer authoritarians with a pro-Beijing outlook, even if that’s opportunistic. More than leverage, it's about China's wider long-term interests. The Beijing-Moscow nexus is now deep. It’s both strategic, geo-economic, and it has emerging, little analyzed, long-term military connotations. It will come to influence and, perhaps, even define the US-China strategic rivalry in many ways.
The worry is that Trump, through his transactional, short-term view of strategy and diplomacy, and indeed his deep-rooted, ideological and ego-driven alignment with Putin and authoritarians, will inadvertently fall prey to some sort of a compromise that has a Chinese angle at its core, if he does come back to the Presidency. And that might well play to Beijing’s advantage even across the US-China relationship, besides the ramifications across Russia and a wider Europe (look for Hungary here, as an example). Of course, the compromise will not favor Ukraine in any way.
If Trump wins, the onus is on Europe to find the formula that gives Ukraine its strategic autonomy without compromise. But then, again, Europe's economy is constrained and its considerable economic dependence on China, doesn’t give one much confidence. If Harris wins, China will still dominate, but the chances of a Ukraine-specific solution are higher.