: How Giuliani and Trump Destabilized Ukraine #WorldNEWS I was standing less than two feet away from President Volodymyr Zelensky, when, in response to his request to buy more Javelin anti-tank missiles,

How Giuliani and Trump Destabilized Ukraine #WorldNEWS
I was standing less than two feet away from President Volodymyr Zelensky, when, in response to his request to buy more Javelin anti-tank missiles, Donald Trump asked to “do us a favor though. ” As the President of the United States continued with his now-infamous demand to investigate his political rival, I picked up a pencil and wrote one word on a piece of paper for Zelensky to see: “Rudy!”
I still have that piece of paper and to this day it serves as a solemn reminder of my encounters with a once well-respected man, whose pressure campaign against a neophyte government helped start a tragic series of events, the outcome of which we now measure daily in human lives. As Ukraine enters the second year of a brutal war, the damage done, and the time lost have now become visible to the naked eye.

In 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was as much of a symbol as he is now, albeit of a different kind. As a newcomer in Ukraine’s political “swamp” (a term we had purposely tried to use as an icebreaker on a call with Trump) Zelensky offered a chance to break the cycle that had been slowly eroding the country’s ability to withstand the gravitational pull from its imperialist neighbor, Russia.
Zelensky’s vision, which resonated with a vast majority of the Ukrainian people, was elegant in its simplicity: Ukraine desperately needed peace and reforms. Despite what some perceived to be the young President’s naivety, Zelensky knew full well that neither of his objectives were in line with Russia’s ongoing quest to destabilize and weaken Ukraine, and hence in order to move forward, he needed to build a healthy relationship with the White House, and fast. That task that would later prove to be an impossible one, all because of a man in the middle.
Rudy Giuliani has now become synonymous with a disastrous July 25, 2019 phone call that had led to the impeachment of the 45th President of the United States, in part because he delivered the same message, even more bluntly, three days earlier. However, what most people don’t realize is that Trump’s initial failed attempt to coerce Ukraine into playing ball did nothing to stop America’s mayor from trying again. In fact, the temporary hold placed on the military aid to Ukraine as part of the first attempt at a quid pro quo now seems by far the least damaging outcome of Giuliani’s efforts on behalf of Donald Trump.
Read More: How My Work For Trump and Giuliani Sought to Make Ukraine Defenseless
First came the attack against the reformists. Unsurprisingly for a man who surrounded himself with characters like Andriy Derkach (later designated as a Russian agent by the United States and charged for treason in Ukraine) and Andriy Artemenko (an associate of Erik Prince’s, who was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship and accused of treason), Giuliani did not shy away from trying to meddle with Zelensky’s appointments.