A memo listing priorities for the US Defense Department under the future president, Donald Trump, does not even mention Russia.
Obtained and published by Foreign Policy on Tuesday, the memo, dated December 1, does not include Russia in threats the US is supposedly facing.
The absence bears the hallmark of Trump’s disagreement with top military and intelligence officials in the United States and Europe over what they call the Russian aggression.
Trump instead focuses on developing a strategy to “defeat/destroy” the Daesh terrorists in Iraq and Syria and another for cyber security among others.
According to an unnamed Trump transition official, the memo is not the final version but Russia’s absence is still considered odd by liberals at a time that efforts are underway to determine what role Moscow played in the 2016 presidential election and if it was the decisive factor behind his victory on November 8.
“For the media to speculate that this list of issues represents all of the president-elect’s priorities is completely erroneous and misleading,” stated the official.
Moscow has denied that it manipulated the US election by releasing emails from the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in favor of the New York billionaire.
Trump, meanwhile, has been calling for better ties with Russia, and referring to President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader.
The Russian leader has also called Trump “a smart man.”
The praise exchanged between the leaders of the two powers as well as Trump’s pick for the State Department, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, could be pointing to better ties between Moscow and Washington under President Trump.
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