Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday dismissed the notion that Donald Trump went easy on Vladimir Putin, reminding him that Moscow was unable to capture Ukrainian land under Trump. He also pointed out that Russia annexed Crimea under Barack Obama and attacked Ukraine under Joe Biden.
"When did he take Ukraine? Did he do it under Donald Trump? Did he take Crimea under Donald Trump?," [Pompeo asked while speaking at the India Today Conclave](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/institutions-broken-mike-pompeo-rejects-idea-trump-destroying-multilateralism-2690571-2025-03-07).
When asked why Trump is tougher on his friends, including Canada or Ukraine, and softer on Putin, Pompeo drew an analogy with his former boss who he "thought was being unfair" to him.
"I remember I had a boss one time who I thought was being unfair to me, and he says, 'You know, I'm always meanest to my best employees...'" However, Pompeo firmly believed that Putin will "not be counting on the fact that you're going to have a friendly President Trump."
Pompeo warned against going by the American media narrative of Trump trusting Russia more than his intelligence agencies, saying that the Trump 1.0 administration, which he was a part of, had put more sanctions on Russia and provided "defensive weapons systems to the Ukrainians, which President Obama has refused to do."
"We unleashed American energy, crushing the Russian energy economy," Pompeo told India Today TV.
Pompeo stressed that Russia did not take an inch of Ukrainian land during Trump’s first administration, calling it the "best evidence" that the US President was never soft on Putin, even during his first term in office.
"How much Ukrainian real estate did Vladimir Putin take on our watch, on our four-year watch?," Pompeo asked.
Pointing at Trump's first tweet on Russia after he assumed office, Pompeo said, "He reminded Vladimir Putin that there could be real costs."
Pompeo also dismissed allegations that Russia has been emboldened by Trump's public fallout with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in recent days and said that it was both Nato and former US President Biden's "failures" that had encouraged Putin to attack Ukraine in the first place.
"President Biden epically failed. NATO epically failed. This is a failure of NATO. You allowed an invasion by Vladimir Putin into Ukraine. President Trump did not allow that invasion," Pompeo said.