Former US president Donald Trump has suggested that Joe Biden should have nothing to do with Ukraine, alluding to the controversial business dealings of the incumbent US president’s son in the ex-Soviet state.
Trump spoke in front of a huge GOP rally in Commerce, Georgia on Saturday, and insisted that “the invasion of Ukraine should never have happened,” while also blaming Biden, whom he slammed as a “sleepy son of a b****,” for being unable to prevent it.
“We have a president that has no idea what the hell he’s doing and has no idea even where he is. The fake news, they’re trying to say he’s acting brilliantly,” he said. But, according to Trump, this isn’t the case at all, because currently “Ukraine is being bombed to s**t!”
“Joe Biden should recuse himself from anything having to do with Ukraine because of how much money they're getting from Ukraine. They’ve taken in a fortune,” he said, referring to what he believes is alleged corrupt activity between the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and a Ukrainian gas company.
The younger Biden had joined the board of Burisma Holdings – one of Ukraine’s largest private natural gas producers – in 2014, soon after the Maidan protests in Kiev that ultimately installed a pro-Western government in the country. The violent coup was backed by the administration of former President Barack Obama, in which Biden senior held the position of vice president.
During the 2020 election campaign, Trump claimed that Biden had used his influence and his government position to get his son the job, with a reported salary of $83,000 per month, and later pressured then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to fire a prosecutor, who had been investigating alleged violations at Burisma.
The elder Biden confirmed that he threatened to withhold a loan to Kiev in order to get a prosecutor sacked, but insisted that this was done to get rid of a corrupt official, in line with bipartisan US policy. His campaign denied all other claims.
Trump’s own attempts to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch a new, publicly announced probe into the Biden family’s dealings with Burisma resulted in ‘abuse of power’ and ‘obstruction of Congress’ charges against him, which eventually led to an impeachment.
“Ukraine would've never happened" if he was still the US president, Trump assured his crowd.
He mentioned Biden numerous times during the speech, saying that the Democrat’s stay in the White House has been “one train wreck after another.”
“The five worst presidents in American history” together “would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done in just 15 months,” the 75-year-old insisted. “In just over a year, he has managed to kill, literally kill, the American dream.”
“But do not lose hope, because, with the right leadership, America will be back, greater, stronger, and more powerful than ever before,” Trump promised, stopping short of announcing another run for office in 2024.
Unlike Biden, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was “smart” for using the military build-up near the Ukrainian border to put pressure on Washington during the negotiations for security guarantees, he said. However, he decried the Russian attack on its neighbor as a “big mistake.”
“That’s a hell of a way to negotiate, put 200,000 troops on the border. That was a big mistake, but it looked like a great negotiation. That didn’t work out too well for him,” the 45th US president said.
Trump also warned about the threat of a nuclear conflict as a result of tensions between Russia and the West over Moscow’s operation.
Russia put its nuclear weapons on high alert after launching its military operation in the neighboring country in late February, citing what it described as “aggressive statements” made by NATO, and harsh financial sanctions imposed by the West.
“We have the president of Russia mentioned the N-word... the nuclear word,” Trump said.“The nuclear word is a very dangerous, dangerous word and it’s being thrown around very cavalierly.”
Russia sent its troops into Ukraine a month ago, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev's failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.
Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it had been planning to retake the two republics by force.