A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
From his first presidential campaign until today, President Trump has been more closely tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin than any other foreign leader.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
But Trump has been sharply critical of Putin in recent days. Has the relationship of the two leaders - some people have called it a bromance - now turned cold?
MARTÍNEZ: For more, we're joined by NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre. So, Greg, what do you make of the president's shift in tone toward Vladimir Putin?
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Trump's relationship with Putin has clearly gone downhill since Trump came into office six months ago and has tried to do business with the Russian leader. Trump proposed a ceasefire in Ukraine. Ukraine agreed. But Putin keeps setting all sorts of conditions and has ratcheted up airstrikes on Ukraine to the highest level ever. Trump went from complimenting Putin to pleading with him on social media about the airstrikes. He wrote at one point, Vladimir, stop. And now Trump has moved onto harsh criticism this week, using some salty language about Putin and saying he's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, but what does that mean, then? I mean, is Trump going to start taking some concrete steps against Russia in support of Ukraine?
MYRE: Well, Trump hasn't committed to substantive actions, and he's always prone to changing his mind. He says he's considering sanctions. And in the Senate, Republican Lindsey Graham says he has more than 80 cosponsors to sanction Russian oil sales. But what's more critical is the U.S. weapons pipeline to Ukraine, which is running low. The Pentagon appeared to be pausing weapon shipments to Ukraine last week, but then Trump said there was no pause. Here's what he said earlier this week about Ukraine.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Have to be able to defend themselves. They're getting hit very hard now, they're getting hit very hard. We're going to have to send more weapons. Yeah, defensive weapons, primarily.
MYRE: So Trump hasn't provided specifics. Though, NBC News says it spoke with the president by phone on Thursday and that he plans to sell U.S. weapons to NATO countries, which would then give them to Ukraine.
MARTÍNEZ: This Trump-Putin relationship goes back a number of years. Can you take us through the history a little bit?
MYRE: Yeah. Many people, of course, recall the controversy surrounding the 2016 presidential election and Trump's largely friendly relations with Putin during his first term. I actually go back to the late 1990s, when I was based in Moscow, when thinking about both of these men. There was periodic talk of Trump building a Trump tower in Moscow, though that never happened. And Putin, meanwhile, became the Russian prime minister in 1999, and very shortly afterward, launched a war in Chechnya. So Putin and Trump weren't linked to each other then, but those developments a quarter century ago do seem relevant today.
MARTÍNEZ: Oh, how so?
MYRE: Well, Trump then and now was looking to make a high-profile deal with leaders in Russia. And he's seen Putin as a leader that will eventually come around and accept his offer, in this case, a ceasefire deal. And Putin, meanwhile, remains fully committed to a military objective, taking Chechnya then and taking Ukraine now. There's a strong perception that Putin has been stringing Trump along, pushing him as hard as he can in Ukraine and waiting to see if Trump will push back.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Greg, if the Trump-Putin relationship has indeed soured then what can we say about Trump's relationship with Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy?
MYRE: Well, that relationship has stabilized, at least for now, over the course of recent meetings and phone calls. In his first term, Trump didn't get along with Zelenskyy. Trump's first impeachment was linked to withholding military aid to Ukraine. And of course, Trump basically kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House back in February after an argument over how to handle the war in Ukraine. Now, Trump's criticism, at least this week, is directed at Putin, not Zelenskyy. I want to stress this is a change in tone for now. We'll have to see if it plays out as a change in policy.
MARTÍNEZ: That is NPR's Greg Myre. Greg, thank you.
MYRE: Sure thing, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
