Former National Security Council official Fionia Hill said Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to distract efforts to reach peace by seeking to “sow chaos” in the U.S. electoral system.
Putin met with President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday, which will be followed by Trump meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday. Following his meeting with Putin, Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in a one-on-one interview that mail-in voting was among the topics the two leaders discussed.
Hill, who served in Trump’s first term, said Sunday the Russian president is trying to “manipulate” politics in the United States by tapping into the 2026 midterm elections. Trump told Hannity that Putin had said a country can’t have “an honest election” with mail-in voting, though Hill said Russia and multiple other countries use mail-in voting.
“Basically, Putin wants to see us tie ourselves up in knots between now and the midterms. He’s trying to sow chaos, and he’s just basically used his time with President Trump to push that along. It’s again — it’s a diversion. It’s a distraction, really, from the negotiations on Ukraine because Putin doesn’t really want to give anything up,” Hill said on CBS News’s Face the Nation.
“So he gives up, basically, something that plays well in the political arena for President Trump, and something that actually plays very badly for the United States in its own political arena, which is the mail-in voting point that he made,” Hill said.
PUTIN APPEARS TO EARN YET ANOTHER TRUMP REPRIEVE
Hill also said any security agreement would need to allow European forces to provide “some security guarantees for Ukraine.” Ahead of Monday’s White House meeting, she said the U.S. needs to provide “a real commitment” to work with Europeans to make this a reality.
Zelensky will be accompanied by several European Union leaders during his trip to the White House. The Ukrainian president said on X that he is “grateful” to visit and supports Trump’s proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia.
