17 April 2025 , 15:44
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Grant Shapps also compares calling Sumy strike a ‘mistake’ to statements by IRA terror group when it killed civilians
Pronouncing himself “disgusted” by Donald Trump’s favorable attitude to Russia and Vladimir Putin, the former UK defence minister Grant Shapps said the US president calling a Russian missile strike that killed dozens in Ukraine last weekend a “mistake” was an example of “weasel language we used to hear … from the IRA” terrorist group.
“All anybody needs Putin to do is get the hell out of a democratic neighboring country,” Shapps told the One Decision podcast, regarding attempts to end the war in Ukraine that has raged since Russia invaded in February 2022.
“And I just have to [put] this on record: it disgusts me, I feel disgusted [by] the idea that the leader of the free world cannot tell the difference between the dictator who locks up and murders his opponents and invades innocent democratic countries and the country itself that has been invaded.
“This lack of moral clarity is completely demoralizing for the rest of the democratic world.”
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said of the Sumy strike: “I think it was terrible. And I was told they made a mistake. But I think it’s a horrible thing.”
Shapps said: “It’s a sort of weasel language. We used to hear it from the IRA [the Irish Republican terrorist group, after attacks killed civilians]. I mean, it’s just appalling to hear this sort of thing. It’s appalling not to be able to condemn it properly.”
Alluding to years of reporting on why Trump has such a favorable view of Putin, with theories ranging from admiration for autocrats to Russia holding compromising material, Shapps said: “I think I do know what hold Putin may have [over Trump] but I mean, it is not right.”
Asked by co-host Kate McCann what he meant by “hold”, Shapps first noted that Trump’s first impeachment, in 2020, was for withholding military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to get Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
Shapps also said that by appeasing Putin, Trump was offering encouragement to other autocrats with territorial ambitions.
“Even if you are the Trump White House, surely you must understand that if you let one dictator get away with it, what do you think will happen when another dictator walks into a neighboring state or one maybe just over the water and takes it over? Do you think that people will believe the west when we say you can’t do that?”
World Affairs Correspondent