Matthew Bryza: Trump’s Ukraine policy surprises many

US President Donald Trump’s vow to continue military aid to Ukraine caught many by surprise, former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza says.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, indeed. And that brings me to the question about President Zelensky. And I'm just wondering

00:05what sort of a relationship Kyiv has now with this new US administration, because they were

00:11pretty fearful about this scenario, the scenario in which President Trump returned to the White

00:16House. That's what they've got now. How do you think they're dealing with it?

00:19Yeah, and Putin was very hopeful Trump would return because he expected Trump would cut

00:23off all military aid to Ukraine. And a couple of weeks ago, what Trump said was, OK, Ukraine

00:28should not join NATO. The war should end. But we need to continue the military aid to

00:32Ukraine for the indefinite future to make sure they can defend themselves should Russia,

00:37again, try to be the aggressor against Ukraine. That was a surprise to a lot of analysts,

00:41certainly to me, probably a pleasant surprise to Zelensky.