SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump had tough words for Ukraine this week, falsely accusing it of starting the war with Russia and calling Ukraine's president a dictator. But the president doesn't use that kind of language when he talks about Vladimir Putin, who has run Russia since the start of the century. NPR's Michele Kelemen has been asking foreign policy experts about Trump's apparent fondness for strong men.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: At a breakfast organized by the Center for the National Interest, a Washington think tank that promotes realism in foreign policy, Russia watchers were reeling from a disorienting week.
NIKOLAS GVOSDEV: I have shut off my phone because I don't want to start talking and then get an alert that something has yet again changed (laughter).
KELEMEN: Nikolas Gvosdev, who teaches at the Naval War College, says, one thing is clear out of the dramatic statements this week.
GVOSDEV: What the Trump administration appears to be signaling is that they do not want the U.S.-Russia relationship to run through Kyiv.
KELEMEN: President Trump sent his secretary of state, national security adviser and Middle East envoy to Saudi Arabia this week to hold a first meeting with their Russian counterparts. Secretary Marco Rubio came away talking about the need to rebuild diplomatic channels through the embassies in Moscow and Washington. National security adviser Mike Waltz brushed aside concerns that Trump could be manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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MIKE WALTZ: If there's anybody in this world that can go toe-to-toe with Putin, that could go toe-to-toe with Xi, that could go toe-to-toe with Kim Jong Un - and you could keep going down the list - it's Donald J. Trump. He is the dealmaker-in-chief.
KELEMEN: Gvosdev of the Naval War College says Trump seems to like 19th-century ideas of major powers controlling the world, and he thinks that's why Trump is reluctant to criticize Putin or China's Xi Jinping.
GVOSDEV: I think that there's an attractiveness to the idea that the endpoint of this is a new Big Three or Big Two with Putin maybe as the half - 2 1/2 - Big Three that now sets the stage for the 21st century.
KELEMEN: Melinda Haring, who's with an advocacy group called Razom for Ukraine, says there's more to the story about the sudden change in approach to Russia.
MELINDA HARING: This is about transactional politics. So the Russians are trying to seduce Trump with the resumption of Russian business. And it's not just energy deals, but it's the return of the glory days from the '90s when Russia and America were great friends, and business was flourishing. So that's the seduction.
KELEMEN: But U.S. businesses left Russia not just because of sanctions in the wake of Russia's war against Ukraine. They were also pushed out through politically motivated criminal cases and corruption, which flourished under Putin's regime. Rather than talking about that, Trump administration officials have been putting pressure on Ukraine to sign over mineral rights to pay the U.S. back for what the U.S. has given to Ukraine in military aid. National security adviser Waltz says Ukraine's president needs to come back to the table on that.
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WALTZ: There can be, in my view, nothing better for Ukraine's future and for their security than to have the United States invested in their prosperity long term.
KELEMEN: French and British leaders are coming to Washington next week to talk about what they can offer for Ukraine's future security. Haring says European allies need to step up their game in Ukraine.
HARING: The other hope is that Putin p***** Trump off so much that Trump says, you think I'm weak? Let me show you. And he goes to the opposite end. And because Donald Trump is not an ideological president.
KELEMEN: Trump could be tough with Russia, though Haring doesn't give that a very high probability. Even at the U.N., the Trump administration would not sign onto a resolution criticizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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