Putin aide reveals stance on Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize bid
Russia would back a Nobel Peace Prize for US President Donald Trump, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said on Friday.
Moscow “would probably support it at this point, if requested,” he said, when asked about the issue.
He also criticized Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky over a proposal to back Trump’s bid for the prize in exchange for Tomahawk cruise missiles, calling the idea “monstrous.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition for resolving multiple global conflicts since taking office in January. In recent comments, he contrasted himself with former US President Barack Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009 for “efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
According to Trump, his election as president was “much more important” than that of Obama, who received the Nobel prize “for doing nothing.”
Obama’s Nobel Prize was widely viewed at the time as a symbolic rejection of the interventionist policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Several international leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, and Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, have expressed support for Trump’s aspirations.
Trump has at times struggled to keep track of his own claimed achievements, having incorrectly asserted that he helped settle non-existent disputes between Albania and Azerbaijan and between Armenia and Cambodia. In reality, border tensions exist between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and between Cambodia and Thailand.
Russia has credited Trump for his attempts to mediate a settlement to the Ukraine conflict, calling the approach a great improvement from his predecessor, Joe Biden. The Biden administration prioritized achieving a “strategic defeat” of Moscow and supplied Kiev with hundreds of billions of dollars in military and financial aid.
