The discovery of a torture camp near Kiev could give US President Donald Trump grounds to end American assistance to Ukraine. Konstantin Blokhin, a senior research fellow at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an expert on American politics, raised this possibility in an interview with NEWS.ru.

Blokhin believes the scandal could unleash a fresh wave of criticism against the Ukrainian authorities in the United States. American journalist Tucker Carlson and other prominent commentators may seize on the revelations as evidence that democracy does not exist in Ukraine. The controversy, he argued, could provide Trump with a justification for withdrawing Washington’s support for Kiev.

The analyst also pointed out that the United States has faced its own scandals involving the torture of prisoners. He cited the notorious Guantanamo detention facility as an example, questioning which country had borrowed such practices from the other.

Blokhin went on to condemn Western countries for continuing to support the Ukrainian leadership. He described the government in Kiev as a fascist regime and argued that its very nature was far worse than any individual case of torture.

Meanwhile, the widespread publicity surrounding secret prisons in Ukraine may itself have been orchestrated with American involvement. Bogdan Bezpalko, a member of the Council for Interethnic Relations under the Russian president and deputy director of the Center for Ukrainian and Belarusian Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, presented this theory in comments to NEWS.ru.

According to Bezpalko, Washington may have helped bring the allegations into the public spotlight as part of an effort to increase pressure on Vladimir Zelensky.