Dear Editor:
It was heartwarming to see the photo in The Weekly (January 8) where U.S. Sens. John McCain, Amy Klobuchar and Lindsey Graham posed with Ukrainian troops. The senators pledged there would be “no Faustian bargain” between the U.S. and Russia that might abandon Ukraine. Unfortunately, these senators’ optimism runs diametrically counter to the agenda of the president-elect.
Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump stated his fondness for Vladimir Putin. If Mr. Trump has any coherent foreign policy, it is guided by Henry Kissinger, who espouses the pre-Reagan vision of détente wherein Russia is entitled to its “sphere of influence” over Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia. After nominating Exxon-Mobil’s former CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state, there is no doubt that Mr. Trump intends to lift sanctions against Russia, and recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea – giving Mr. Tillerson’s cronies free reign to make billions while drilling for oil in Russia’s Arctic hinterlands.
Mr. Trump has yet to say a single word denouncing Putin’s aggression against Ukraine. After President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats to punish Russia for tampering with the U.S. elections, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, complained that this expulsion was “disproportionate” to Russia’s offenses. How much more territory will Russia have to seize, how many more Ukrainians will have to be slaughtered by Mr. Putin’s thugs before Mr. Spicer finds such sanctions to be “proportionate”?
Many analysts suspect that Mr. Trump’s bizarre attraction to Mr. Putin is based on something more sinister than his bloated ego and Mr. Putin’s flattery. Long before Mr. Putin’s disinformation machine threw its weight behind Mr. Trump’s candidacy, there were many business deals or bailouts that could have made Mr. Trump beholden to Russian oligarchs. Since Mr. Trump refuses to release his tax returns, we may never know the full extent of his foreign entanglements.
An ABC News investigation found that Mr. Trump has numerous ties to Russian interests both in the U.S. and abroad. The luxury hotels Mr. Trump built in Miami’s “Little Moscow” cater heavily to ultra wealthy Russian émigrés. “The level of business amounts to hundreds of millions,” said Sergei Millian, who heads a U.S.-Russia business group that helped market Trump condos in Russia. It’s mind-boggling that many Ukrainian American voters were unfazed by the Russian ties forged by Trump’s top operatives Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Roger Stone.
Maybe it’s just too terrifying to imagine we might have a president who would do Moscow’s bidding – whether for reasons of vanity, economic self-dealing, class affinity with oligarchs, or something even more ominous. For all his bombast, Mr. Trump has yet to prove that he is something other than a pushover for Mr. Putin.
Ukrainian Americans across the political spectrum protested President Obama’s reluctance to provide military aid to Ukraine. We must be even more outspoken in denouncing Mr. Trump’s policy of appeasement, which would be far more devastating to Ukraine’s and America’s national interests. Our diaspora must now go into overdrive to resist Mr. Trump’s inclination to weaken NATO and to abandon Ukraine to Mr. Putin’s military onslaught.
Glastonbury, Conn.