With or without war, Ukraine gives Biden a new lease on leadership

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. whatever Putin decides, Biden and NATO allies have made Russia stop and think

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Fiona Hill doesn't know whether President Joe Biden can lead Western allies to ward off Russia's threat to Ukraine. But unlike his predecessor, he's trying.

Hill has a special vantage point on this slow-rolling crisis that US officials say could bring war in Europe at any moment. As a White House national security aide, she advised then-President Donald Trump on Russia and Ukraine -- and became a star witness in impeachment proceedings that resulted from his conduct......

"There's no Team America for Trump," Hill recalled. "Not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second."

It showed in Trump's praise for the authoritarian leader of Russia, an American adversary that had boosted his finances as a business executive. It showed in his reluctance to embrace America's mutual defense commitments to European allies, which for decades have constrained Russian behavior; instead, Trump treated NATO as what Hill called a "protection racket."

Most notoriously, it showed in Trump's attempt to squeeze Ukraine's President for manufactured dirt on Biden to help his 2020 election campaign. He held up American military aid as a political lever as Ukraine faced the long-running Russian military threat that now has the entire world on edge.