Waiting for Trump's 'Wink' to Seize Ukraine
The Mueller Report has details that are damning amid Trump's comments on the war
There are many interesting details resurrected from the Russia investigation in the new book Interference: The Inside Story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller Investigation, authored by three top lawyers for former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. However, one stood out to me. In December 2016, Konstantin Kilimnik, who a Republican-majority U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report described as a Russian intelligence officer, wrote an email to Paul Manafort, who had been Donald Trump's campaign manager the previous summer. "All that is required to start the process," Kilimnik wrote, referring to a "peace plan" for Eastern Ukraine, "is a very minor 'wink' (or slight push)" from President-elect Trump. Klimnik added that Trump "could have peace in Ukraine basically within a few months after inauguration."
According to the Senate report, Kilimnik was pushing a "peace plan…that benefited the Kremlin." The report added that Manafort "understood that the plan was a 'backdoor' means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine." Manafort had been out of his job as campaign manager since August after his ties to Russia became public, but according to the Senate report, he stayed in touch with Trump. It's not clear that anything came of this plan: there is no evidence that Trump saw it, and, according to the Senate report, Manafort told Kilmnik that the plan was "crazy," however, the two continued discussing it through at least 2018.
Interference authors Aaron Zebley, James Quarles, and Andrew Goldstein wrote that Klmnik's email, later disclosed in the Mueller report, made them think: "Was Manafort working directly with the Russians to influence both the election and US foreign policy in one of the most contested regions of the world?"
Nearly eight years later, the plan that the two discussed is the type of deal that Trump might endorse were he to end the Russo-Ukrainian war in "24 hours" as he has repeatedly promised. Trump has refused to give details about how he would end the war. But ending the war immediately would likely mean a settlement offer on Russian leader Vladimir Putin's terms of surrender, which are territorial concessions and no Western security guarantees.
Trump has indicated that he believes that the type of territorial concessions that Kilmnik proposed to Manafort would have stopped the full-scale invasion. At a campaign appearance on September 25, Trump asserted that Ukraine could have given up "a little bit" of its territory to avoid the full-scale invasion in 2022. He added that the "worst deal" would have been preferable to a full war and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had "refused" to make a deal.
But there's no evidence that Putin wanted "a little bit" of Ukraine -- he wanted it all, writing in July 2021 that Ukrainians and Russians were "one people." However, Trump's own first term shows that arming Kyiv was an effective policy to deter Russia. The weapons that Trump first provided Ukraine in 2017 -- things like Javelin anti-tank missiles -- were critical in defending Kyiv in the early days of the full-scale invasion. (Notably, President Barack Obama declined to give Kyiv these weapons during his presidency.) These weapons were later the subject of Trump's first impeachment inquiry, where Democrats charged that he delayed their delivery to try to compel Zelensky to dig up dirt on the son of his political rival Joe Biden.
Yet, Trump has grown skeptical about Ukraine aid. On September 24, he mocked Zelensky as the "greatest salesman on earth" because he walks "away with $100 billion" every time he comes to Washington. (The U.S. has actually provided Ukraine with closer to $60 billion in military aid since the start of the full-scale invasion; Zelensky left Washington last month without permission to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deeper into Russia, his biggest policy goal.) Also on September 24, Trump sounded skeptical that Ukraine could win the war and praised the strength of Russia's military: "They beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon—that’s what they do, they fight."
The Mueller Report helped answer the question of why Kremlin-friendly rhetoric was such a feature of Trump's 2016 campaign: the report describes in detail -- and with zero doubt -- that the Russians launched an unprecedented influence campaign to help him win. In 2024, Trump continues to praise Putin at every turn. It's an ominous development for Ukraine. When Zelensky traveled to Trump Tower last month, the former president praised Putin in a joint press appearance: "We have a very good relationship and I also have a very good relationship with President Putin, and if we win I think we’re going to get it resolved very quickly." When Zelensky cut in, "I hope we’re going to have more good relations with us," Trump said, "You know, it takes two to tango.”
Trump's "two to tango" comment was stunning. It was an expression of contempt for Ukraine, suggesting they were the obstacle to a solution. I don't think many people picked up on it, even pundits focused on the war didn't take note. Given that Trump is typically incoherent, some may have dismissed it as garble.