Trump's pause on Ukraine aid is like the U.S. switching sides in WWII, expert says

Donald Trump’s decision to pause American military aid to Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenksyy is handing Russia's Vladimir Putin the upper hand, experts warn.

LONDON — President Donald Trump’s decision to pause American military aid to Ukraine is handing Russia’s Vladimir Putin the upper hand on the battlefield and in geopolitical negotiations, former officials and experts warned Tuesday.

The White House said the defense assistance was being reviewed to make sure it was contributing to the administration’s goal of being “focused on peace.”

Military analysts say that withholding Ukraine’s defensive lifeblood will be “crippling” in a matter of months as it tries to hold back the Russian war machine and defend its cities being bombed nightly.

It will also deepen the chasm between the Trump administration and Washington’s longtime European allies, who are already scrambling to fill the void left by a U.S. government pursuing a rapprochement with their chief antagonist in Moscow.

Michael McFaul, Washington’s ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, likened the move to President Franklin D. Roosevelt losing “the 1940 election to an America Firster who then had the U.S. switch sides in World War II. ... We’d all be speaking German now.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-ukraine-aid-russia-putin-zelenskyy-rcna194649

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