Washington (United States) (AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s pivot away from Ukraine has triggered fresh questions about his attachment to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the man a top American envoy flattered on Wednesday as a “humanitarian.”

Trump has cast his dealings with Putin as part of a mega-deal that has secured the release of American detainee Stephen Hubbard – and which Trump says will end Russia’s war on Ukraine.

At the same time, he has repeatedly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and called for him to be replaced.

“I do things that nobody else can do,” Trump told an AFP reporter in the Oval Office on Tuesday when asked about Hubbard.

But for Trump’s critics, it is the latest example of his willingness to sell Ukraine down the river, especially as he seeks a deal before difficult US midterm elections in November.

His ties to Putin have long been under scrutiny.

Trump still complains of what he calls the “Russia hoax” following an investigation in his first term into whether his 2016 election campaign colluded with Moscow.

Last week, Trump announced a huge agreement under which he said Russia would release diesel to ease prices sent soaring by the Iran war – and temporarily eased sanctions on Moscow.

Trump insisted on his Truth Social network that there was “no ‘swap’ necessary” for Hubbard’s release.

Yet in another post minutes later, he admitted that if he had not paused the sanctions targeting Russia, “those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt.”

The US president has also appeared to give diplomatic rewards to Putin – who masterminded the Ukraine war and has pushed his maximalist goals for more than four years of grinding conflict.

In Saint Petersburg on Wednesday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told Putin: “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian – you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that.”

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