Defense Secretary James Mattis said that the United States “cannot trust” Vladimir Putin and that America’s relationship with the Kremlin has “worsened” because of its aggression around the world and alleged attempts to interfere with American elections.
Mattis made the critical remarks over the weekend at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California.
Mattis calls Putin untrustworthy
Speaking on Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Mattis called Putin a “slow learner” and said that his authoritarian politics, military overtures, and uses of cyber warfare are bringing NATO countries closer together.
“Mr. Putin is clearly a slow learner. He is not recognizing that what he is doing is actually creating an animosity against his people. He’s not acting in the best interests of the Russian people, and he is actually causing NATO to rearm and to strengthen the democracies’ stance, the unified stance of all the democracies together,” Mattis said, adding that “what we are seeing Putin do with his ripping up of international agreements… We’re dealing with someone that we simply cannot trust.”
Mattis also pointed to Russia’s violent seizure of Ukrainian ships and crews in the Kerch Strait off the coast of Crimea last weekend. The naval dispute sparked fears of new conflict in the tense border region, where Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
The United States and other Western countries have backed Ukraine, with Mattis slamming Russia’s “brazen” aggression. He also said that “there’s no doubt the relationship [with Russia] has worsened,” claiming that Russia tried to hack the midterm elections.
“[Putin] tried again to muck around in our elections this last month. And we are seeing a continued effort along those lines,” Mattis said.
U.S., Russia tensions grow
Mattis has generally been more hawkish toward Russia than his boss, and the two seem to have a difference of opinion on the importance of NATO. Still, despite President Donald Trump’s often equivocal statements about Russia, the United States’ relationship with the Kremlin is far less friendly than MSNBC and CNN would like their viewers to think.
Tensions between Washington and Moscow have grown over Russia’s continued backing of Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as Russian aggression in Europe and its alleged violations of international agreements. Trump fell into alignment with Mattis when he announced plans in October to pull out of a decades-old nuclear arms treaty with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, claiming that Russia had violated the agreement.
Trump said Friday that the naval conflict near Crimea was his only reason for canceling a meeting last week with Putin at the G20 summit in Argentina. He met with Putin for a more informal talk over dinner on Friday.
“We don’t like what happened, we’re not happy about what happened,” Trump said. “On the basis of what took place with the ships and sailors, that was the sole reason.”
Mattis’ remarks come as President Trump is facing criticism over a now-defunct real estate project in Moscow that his former attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying about in cutting a deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller last week. The proposal never went anywhere, but Trump critics claim that it is evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia, and have attempted to connect it with Trump’s decision to cancel the G20 meeting.
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