Trump ‘asked Putin for advice’ about whether the US should help arm Ukraine

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Donald Trump reportedly asked Vladimir Putin for his advice on whether the US should help arm Ukraine at their first in-person meeting.

The Republican presidential nominee, who has been vocal in his criticism of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, reportedly asked Putin “what do you think?” when the pair met in Hamburg in 2017, according to The New York Times.

Trump has wildly claimed Putin “would never have gone into Ukraine” if he were president and has touted his “very good relationship” with him several times.

The meeting — which took place three years after Russian forces invaded the Crimean peninsula — was “an opening” for Putin to begin exploiting Trump’s “escalating political grudge” against Ukraine in a bid to weaken US support for the country, officials who were privy to the exchange have shared with the newspaper.

Trump had only been in office for seven months when the pair met. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attended the meeting, which was “a masterclass” by Putin to mold the relatively new president’s approach to Ukraine, according to The Times.

Putin told Trump that Ukraine was a “corrupt” and “fabricated country” and insisted Russia had “every right” to wield its authority over the nation,The Times reported.

Trump reportedly told Putin he was considering giving weapons to Ukraine and asked: “What do you think?”

The Russian leader said that would be “a mistake.” Ukraine would only ask for more, he reportedly warned Trump. According to three American officials who were in Hamburg, the former president did not push back.

Tillerson reportedly said to “nervous” White House aides after the meeting: “We’ve got work to do to change the president’s mind on Ukraine.”

Fiona Hill, a member of Trump’s National Security Council staff who was in the German city for the summit and briefed about the meeting by Tillerson, told The Times: “Putin was basically telling [Trump] that you can’t trust Ukraine, and don’t give them anything.”

She added that Tillerson said Putin had done his “K.G.B. shtick” on Trump.

Tillerson was fired by Trump in March 2018. The former ExxonMobil chief executive later shared some insight into the meeting in Hamburg with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he reportedly said Trump was “out-prepared” by Putin.

“We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted,” a committee aide told the Washington Post at the time. “There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.”

Trump slapped this down in a statement, saying he was “perfectly prepared” and he did “very well at those meetings.”

Trump was first impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019 after it was revealed he tried to have Zelensky investigate President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, over potential impropriety by threatening to withhold military aid to the former Soviet republic.

Though the Senate acquitted him in 2020, Trump told Zelensky on a phone call in July 2019: “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.” He added: “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.”

Ukraine has been front and center in the 2024 presidential campaign. When Trump met with Zelensky in New York last month, he used the opportunity to declare his support for the Ukrainian and Putin as he once again claimed that he will end the war. “We have a very good relationship,” he told reporters as he stood with Zelensky.

“And I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin,” he added. “And if we win, I think we’re going to get it resolved very quickly.”

Trump had previously canceled plans to meet with the Ukrainian leader after Zelensky sparked GOP outrage by visiting the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.