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Trump gets much wrong on Ukraine

While officials within the Obama administration remain reluctant to attribute the cyberattack against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to any national government, United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claims to “know” that Russian intelligence is the culprit.

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The Russian intelligence service claims hackers penetrated computer systems in government agencies and defense companies after being accused by USA government officials of stealing data from the Democratic Party at the behest of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Most recently, Reuters reported that at least one computer network used by the Clinton campaign was also targeted by hackers.

The United States would not tolerate that from any other country, especially one considered an adversary, Clinton said.

I think the Journal may be misreading it and that when Mr. Trump said “He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right”, the “he” was President Obama, not Mr. Putin.

Asked if she believed Putin wanted Trump in the White House, Clinton said she was not going to jump to that conclusion.

“If, in fact, Russian Federation engaged in this activity, it’s just one on a long list of issues that me and Mr. Putin talk about”, Obama said.

Everything began with a declaration the businessman made this Sunday, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t considering a military move into Ukraine, even though he has already done that, obtaining the Crimean Peninsula.

Trump stated that he would prefer to make friends with Russian Federation for the sake of ultimate victory over ISIS. Trump had just promised that he would keep Russian Federation out of Ukraine less than 30 seconds earlier during the same interview. Trump said during a town hall in Columbus, Ohio yesterday. Some intelligence experts believe Russian Federation was behind the plot and the Clinton campaign has accused Mr Trump of benefitting from the timing of their release. But they’re outsmarting us, if you look at Syria or other places. “We know that they arranged for a lot of those emails to be released”, Clinton said in an interview aired on Sunday (31 July).

It probably would never do so unless a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member such as Poland or one of the Baltic states were faced with Russian aggression.

Trump has said he may recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But delegates at the Platform Committee meetings and officials with the Republican National Committee said that not only was the Trump campaign behind the new language, but that it was, in fact, the only major revision the campaign demanded. They spent billions and billions, a number that was beyond any number I’ve ever heard.

After Yanukovych fled Ukraine in 2014, Manafort went to work for the exiled president’s chief of staff, Serhiy Lyovochkin, helping to rebuild Yanukovych’s fractured political party. Crimea has been under occupation by Moscow-backed forces since Putin sent troops into Ukraine. “Does he not know that?”

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Trump often speaks wistfully about smoother relations between Washington and Moscow. I said something good about him when (broadcaster) Larry King was on.

Image edited by Kevin Rothrock