The conversation is no longer just about the present conflict, there is already an undeclared covert war under way<\/p>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s characteristically vociferous attempt last week to pressure Vladimir Putin<\/a> into ending the war in Ukraine, which Russia\u2019s leader launched three years ago next month, is a welcome shift. Throughout the US election campaign, the Republican candidate complained about the cost of military aid to Kyiv. He claimed the war would never have started had he been in the White House, and boasted he could end it \u201cin 24 hours\u201d. Trump also avoided personal criticism of Putin. The nature and history of their relationship has long been clouded in mystery. It still is.<\/p>\n Yet Trump\u2019s tone and emphasis have changed markedly since he began his second term as US president on Monday. Putin\u2019s refusal to enter into unconditional negotiations endangered Russia as much as Ukraine<\/a>, he said. \u201cI think he should make a deal. I think he\u2019s destroying Russia.\u201d Overt threats quickly followed. Russia\u2019s economy was imploding, Trump said. Putin should \u201csettle now and stop this ridiculous war\u201d or face US tariffs, taxes and additional sanctions. \u201cWe can do it the easy way, or the hard way \u2013 and the easy way is always better.\u201d<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The conversation is no longer just about the present conflict, there is already an undeclared covert war under way Donald Trump\u2019s characteristically vociferous attempt last week to pressure Vladimir Putin into ending the war in Ukraine, which Russia\u2019s leader launched three years ago next month, is a welcome shift. Throughout the US election campaign, the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}