A month of destruction from Russia's war in Ukraine 1:22
(CNN) --
The Russian invasion of Ukraine did not come out of nowhere.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up tensions with the West for most of the past decade, annexing Crimea, meddling in US elections, poisoning a former spy on British soil and more.
Almost every step of the way, former President Donald Trump repeated the Kremlin's talking points, excused Russian aggression and sometimes even embraced it outright.
It's easy to forget that a few years ago, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky was known not for his ironclad wartime leadership, but for being dragged by Trump into the American political scandal that led to the first impeachment trial against Trump.
OPINION |
A month after the start of the war, Zelensky has finished with the niceties
Experts say Trump's actions weakened Ukraine, split NATO, emboldened Putin and helped us get to where we are today.
And even when Trump is no longer in office, his impact lives on in the form of favorable comments for Putin in the conservative media and from some Republican lawmakers.
"One of the key reasons Putin probably felt comfortable launching the Ukraine invasion was the extent to which the West has been weakened and destabilized, and democracy undermined and political divisions sown, in the five years since he attacked our elections in 2016," said Garrett Graff, a historian and journalist with experience in national security and Cold War issues.
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Here are four things to remember about Trump, Ukraine, and Putin.
Trump sided with Russia when the conflict began
Trump historically siding with Putin and supporting Russia, not Ukraine 7:48
A popular revolution in 2014 ousted Kyiv's pro-Russian regime, led by President Viktor Yanukovych, and replaced it with a Western-leaning government.
Russian troops soon invaded the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, starting the armed conflict that escalated this year.
Within weeks, Trump praised Putin for how he handled the takeover of Crimea and predicted that "the rest of Ukraine will fall... pretty quickly."
Echoing Kremlin propaganda, Trump said in a television interview that the people of Crimea "would rather be with Russia," a position he also privately promoted.
One of his 2016 campaign aides falsely claimed that "Russia did not take over Crimea."
"Trump said Crimea is Russian, because people speak Russian," said Elena Petukhova of Molfar, a Kyiv-based business intelligence firm, calling the opinion "absolutely pro-Kremlin."
"According to this logic, the entire territory of the United States should belong to Great Britain."
When Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down a commercial airliner in 2014, killing 298 people, Trump cast doubt on Russia's involvement.
He embraced Putin's denials, even after US and European officials publicly concluded that Russia was complicit.
Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — who spent a decade advising Yanukovych in Ukraine — collaborated in 2016 with a Russian spy on a secret plan for Trump to help Russia control eastern Ukraine, according to the report. special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
The proposal envisioned Yanukovych returning to lead a Russian puppet state in eastern Ukraine.
This pro-Russian rhetoric did not always translate into policy for the Trump White House.
For example, his government said the sanctions would continue until Russia returned Crimea.
But the rhetoric gave Putin an unexpected cheerleader in Washington and created tensions within NATO.
Trump's mixed record on arming Ukraine
This is how US weapons help Ukraine in the war 2:34
President Joe Biden has dramatically increased the flow of weapons to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft systems, drones, rifles, and other weapons.
Importantly, Trump was the first to send lethal aid, in a major change from the Obama administration, which refused to send offensive weapons to Ukraine during the early stages of the fighting in eastern Donbas.
But Trump has a checkered past on this issue.
As a candidate, his position was unclear at best.
Trump campaign aides intervened during the 2016 Republican National Convention to block language in the GOP platform that called for the United States to send deadly weapons to Ukraine.
And in 2019, Trump infamously withheld nearly $400 million in military aid as part of his attempt to pressure Zelensky into announcing bogus corruption investigations into the businesses of Biden and his family.
Weapons in the stalled aid package included Javelin missiles that have become a crucial part of Ukraine's surprisingly strong defenses against Russian tanks.
This led to Trump's first impeachment trial, but he was acquitted by the GOP-led Senate.
Some of the Republicans who opposed his impeachment are now urging Biden to send more weapons.
“The Republican Party is Russia's hawk party.
For half a century, one of its core organizing principles was to oppose the Soviet threat,” Graff said, adding that Trump turned that story on its head and made some Republicans go soft on Putin.
"But in this past month, many Republicans who grew bland on Russia have returned to their natural position as Russia hawks."
Trump led a smear campaign against Ukraine
US President Donald Trump talks with Putin on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 2017. Trump said he believed Putin when he said that Russia did not try to interfere in the US presidential election. in 2016, even though US intelligence agencies discovered that he did.
(Credit: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Sputnik/Getty Images)
Throughout his presidency, Trump promoted a litany of false claims about Ukraine, in public and in private.
He rarely missed an opportunity to criticize the country.
A well-respected diplomat testified before Congress that Trump believed "Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of terrible people."
Trump's biggest lie was about the 2016 election. He rejected the reality that Russia interfered to help him win.
Instead, he falsely claimed that it was the Ukraine that meddled and that he was the victim.
These lies, which he repeated dozens of times, did double duty for the Kremlin: They downplayed Russia's brazen attack on American democracy, while simultaneously smearing Ukraine.
These views quickly became the party line for Republican lawmakers and conservative pundits, despite leading Russia pundits like Fiona Hill publicly warning that it was all Russian propaganda.
This was a break from decades of warm American policy toward Ukraine, especially when it comes to leaders like Zelensky, who tried to reorient the country toward the West.
Former President George W. Bush praised the Ukrainian people in 2004 for protesting a rigged election, and Obama celebrated the 2014 revolution that toppled a pro-Kremlin government in Kyiv.
“When Trump muddies the water by praising Putin, or undermining Zelensky and spreading untruths about Ukraine, that has real implications for how this crisis plays out,” said Jordan Gans-Morse, a Northwestern University professor who was a Fulbright scholar in Ukraine.
"He shapes public opinion in a way that he ties Biden's hands when he is a de facto wartime president."
Trump repeatedly undermined Zelensky
Zelensky to NATO: We ask for 1% of all tanks that have 0:43
GQ magazine recently wrote of Zelensky's "infinite heroism" and Time magazine said he "brought the world together."
But the myth of Zelensky as a Churchill-like figure is a new development.
Less than three years ago, Zelensky was a budding politician who was exploited by Trump and his cronies as part of a clumsy attempt to smear candidate Biden.
The relationship between the United States and Ukraine was pushed into the background and replaced with Trump's personal and political needs.
Zelensky's top priorities were getting more US arms shipments and meeting with Trump at the White House.
Veteran US diplomats in Kyiv shared this goal.
But they were smeared and sidelined, and replaced by a gang of Trump loyalists who made their demands clear: Zelensky could only get these things if he announced that Ukraine was investigating Biden for corruption.
This heavy hand from the Trump team forced Zelensky, in his first few months in office, to navigate a surprisingly hostile relationship with the US, a supposed main ally in his fight against Russia.
"Zelensky had more than enough on his plate when he came to power," Gans-Morse said.
"The country was already at war with Russia.
He is a political novice.
And then on top of that, the most powerful person in the world essentially blackmailed him, and he had to put in the time and energy to deal with it.
It's not clear what the full impact was, but it definitely tested Zelensky."
Donald Trump Vladimir Putin Volodymyr Zelensky
