«Ukraine means nothing to him»: Is Trump a secret Kremlin agent? Kuleba responds

Saying that Donald Trump "receives Kremlin talking points" and completely "plays to Putin’s tune" is incorrect.

Former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said this in an interview with LIGA.net, discussing how the American President actually views Russia and Ukraine.

"I’ll express an unpopular opinion: Trump does not wake up in the morning, receive a Kremlin manual, and decide which page to follow that day. At the same time, Trump is surrounded by people, and he himself believes that they can actually do a lot of good things with Russia and that Russia is important to him. But Ukraine means nothing to him. That’s all. That’s just how he sees the world," the diplomat said.

The claim that Trump is a Kremlin agent, Kuleba calls a "prejudiced stereotype."

"Trump believes that Russia is important. People come to him and tell him that things are not so clear-cut, that Ukraine is also to blame. And it resonates with him — he accepts the idea that Ukraine is also to blame… It is true, it is a fact, that Trump’s entourage actively promotes narratives in the media that we consider pro-Russian, and all of Trump’s voters eagerly pick them up on social media. But I don’t think Trump does this because he is an agent who has to follow orders," the former minister explained.

In Kuleba’s view, the U.S. President "simply, sincerely believes in a different version of reality."

"We believe in one reality, and he believes in another. And what is that reality? It is the belief that people like Putin and Xi Jinping inspire deep respect and a desire to do big things with them. China, of course, is a major competitor, but the way Xi Jinping governs is still close to how Donald Trump wants to rule America. Mentally, they’re just on the same page. If Putin lays claim to Crimea or eastern Ukraine, it’s with the same kind of reasoning Trump uses when making claims about Greenland and Canada," the diplomat said.

Kuleba emphasizes that Trump makes claims about Greenland or Canada not because Putin asked him to, in order to make Russia’s territorial claims against Ukraine seem more convincing.

"Trump just thinks that way. He likes it. And here we are, Europeans and Ukrainians, standing in the way of "big deals with friend Vladimir," Kuleba concluded.