Republicans approve of Trump’s dialogue with Putin, but fear excessive concessions to Kremlin - CNN
Republican lawmakers in the US have praised Donald Trump's talks with Vladimir Putin, but are increasingly warning that Russia's actions could spell disaster for Ukraine and the West.
According to Censor.NET, this was reported by CNN.
Senator Tom Tillis was perhaps the most outspoken. On CBS Mornings, he said that Putin was trying to drag Trump into his game and warned against allowing the Russian president to gain "even a shred of victory."
"Putin is scared that a former Soviet republic could become a successful Western democracy. This would be the beginning of the end of his failed totalitarian experiment. And even the slightest concession on our part would only fuel his belief that the world must submit to dictatorship," said Tillis, who is not running for re-election next year.
Senator Lindsey Graham warned that any "territorial exchanges" should only take into account the actual temporary occupation, but not legalize the transfer of Ukrainian lands to Russia.
"We must be very careful not to reward Putin with military force," he said in an interview with Fox News.
Graham emphasized that concessions to Moscow could signal to China to use force to take Taiwan.
Similar warnings were voiced by influential media figures. Fox News host Mark Levin devoted part of his broadcast to analyzing Russia's territorial ambitions and the failures of international agreements that failed to curb them. He called Putin a "genocidal maniac." This thesis was immediately picked up by Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who urged Trump to remember: "Putin lies and kills."
Senator Ted Cruz predicts that Trump will be able to conclude a peace agreement, but only if it is "an obvious defeat for Russia."
Congressman Joe Wilson said: "War criminal Putin is deceiving the world. But we have a president who understands this."
At the same time, Congressman Don Bacon from Nebraska, who is not running for re-election, has become one of the most critical voices in the party. He supported the very idea of negotiations, but sharply criticized Trump's statement that "Ukraine could have peace tomorrow if it wanted to."
According to Bacon, such rhetoric sounds like a call to surrender to the invasion.
"We must negotiate with moral clarity, understanding that it was Russia that started this war. Barbarism cannot be rewarded," he stressed.
It is telling that Republicans feel compelled to publicly voice these concerns. Negotiating a real peace deal means figuring out what constitutes an acceptable concession. And that is obviously a pretty scary prospect for many Russia supporters who have watched silently for years as Trump and his party have distanced themselves from Ukraine.
The fact that Republicans are publicly expressing such reservations shows that the prospect of real peace negotiations — with the need for concrete concessions — is quite alarming for many of them.
