Trump: échange de prisonniers entre la Russie et l'Occident "Victoire pour Poutine"
"I ne critique pas, car c'est bien qu'ils soient rentrés chez eux," a déclaré Trump, faisant référence aux 16 personnes libérées dans l'échange, dont le journaliste américain Evan Gershkovich, l'ancien soldat américain Paul Whelan et la journaliste russo-américaine Alsu Kurmasheva. Mais l'autre partie a "faire un deal phénoménal", a-t-il critiqué. "Et c'est un très mauvais précédent."
Bien que le retour de Gershkovich soit "merveilleux", "ces deals sont si mauvais qu'ils mèneront à d'énormes enlèvements", a-t-il déclaré, cherchant à minimiser le succès du président Joe Biden dans la conclusion de l'accord.
Trump avait précédemment fanfaronné qu'il était le seul à pouvoir obtenir la libération de Gershkovich - et seulement s'il était réélu. Maintenant, il utilise l'échange de prisonniers pour attaquer Biden. During the interview, he said that Biden and his vice president, and likely Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, are "not respected" on the international stage.
On his online platform Truth Social, the former president also speculated about the details of the prisoner exchange. "Did we pay them money too?" he asked on Thursday. "Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs?"
The US national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said on Thursday that no concessions were made for the agreement. No money was paid, and no sanctions against Russia were eased.
Russia and its ally Belarus, and on the other side Germany, the US, and three other NATO states, carried out the prisoner exchange on Thursday afternoon in the Turkish capital Ankara. Relations between the West and Russia are at an all-time low since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; the government in Ankara is trying to maintain good ties with both Russia and Ukraine.
Despite the successful prisoner exchange involving the European Union member states and Russia, Trump criticized it as setting a "very bad precedent" for future negotiations. Furthermore, he questioned whether any monetary concessions were made to Russia during this exchange, as he continued to attack President Joe Biden over the issue on his online platform.
