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How do I betray thee? Let me count the ways… Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning for mangling her celebrated poem to reflect Donald Trump’s multiple Ukraine treacheries. This most perfidious of presidents surpassed himself last week, accusing Kyiv of invading itself three years ago . “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he fatuously griped.
Candidate Trump, touting a just peace, pledged to end the war in a day. Now he praises Vladimir Putin, claims Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is “a dictator” and backs a settlement on Moscow’s criminal, one-sided terms. This deranged collapse into craven capitulation, this transition from American saviour to American Judas, took less than a month. It’s contemptible.
The wider, negative ramifications of Trump’s infamy may take years to fully grasp. But its immediate import is plain. For Ukraine’s people, daily victims of Putin’s aggression, Trump is right up there with Brutus, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling and Lord Haw-Haw. Tens of thousands of civilians are dead or injured, millions are displaced and homeless. Now they are all Trump’s victims, too.
Putin, a dictator in the true sense, launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion in defiance of common sense, morality and international law. He is committing serial war crimes. Yet he’s flattered and excused, and told he can keep what he stole, by his White House gangsta bro. Trump should demand Putin’s arrest along with an unconditional end to hostilities. Instead, he plays lickspittle. He’s a disgrace to American democracy.
Suggestions that Trump makes wild, disruptive statements for a reason are unconvincing. And it’s not mere recklessness or stupidity, either. He appears constantly angry, always demanding attention, saying whatever comes into his addled head. There is something slightly crazy about this behaviour. Is he mentally unwell? November’s election is ancient history now. Could Americans still choose not to be led by a lying lunatic for the next four years? The 25th amendment says they could. Europe cannot fire him, but its verdict is already in. Trump and his astonishingly ignorant sidekick, JD Vance, are betraying their own country as well as everyone else. Trump attacks shared values – sovereignty, respect for laws, human rights – at home and abroad. Friendly governments cling to the wreckage as old postwar certainties sink beneath them. Washington is no longer seen as a dependable ally, more actual or potential adversary.
The breakneck US-Russia reset, symbolised by last week’s syrupy talks in Riyadh, has stunned European Nato states. Now they struggle to avoid a dire choice: break with the US and stick with Ukraine – or meekly accept Trump-Putin diktats. An emergency summit convened by France’s Emmanuel Macron, the closest Europe gets to a leader, dramatised their dilemma and divisions.
Ukraine is in shock over Trump’s unforced concessions and pro-Russia lurch: no return of occupied territory to Kyiv; no Nato membership, no US security guarantees, no troops. Less art of the deal, more art of the steal. Zelenskyy’s too-true jibe about Trump living in a “Russian disinformation bubble” hit a nerve, recalling the Mueller report on 2016 election collusion with the Kremlin.
Trump is also furious that Zelenskyy spurned his brazen attempt to extort billions of dollars, in rare minerals and reconstruction contracts, as “repayment” for US aid since 2022. This shakedown illuminates an ugly truth. Trump, a cowardly, amoral bully, respects only power and money. He reckons Putin is winning. He wants to be on the winning side. It’s that simple. He acts the same way with Benjamin Netanyahu and Gaza, conflating realpolitik and real estate.
The independence and security of “frontline states” – Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – and of Russia’s neighbours in Finland and Norway are fundamentally compromised by US appeasement. Unlike Keir Starmer, Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, will not send troops to Ukraine. He needs everything he’s got to defend a homeland with bitter memories of Russian invasion and partition.
All these countries are already under hybrid attack in Putin’s sabotage and cyber shadow war. Those in Europe who characterise the US-Russia tryst in Riyadh as Yalta 2 have a point. Does Nato’s mutual defence guarantee still hold good with Trump at the helm? Britain went to war over Poland in 1939. Eastern Europe was sold out to Stalin in 1945. Is history repeating?
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Starmer faces a battle in Washington this week to stop Trump making Russia great again. Macron will precede him at the White House. The UK and France are considering sending a “reassurance force” to prevent future Russian attacks on Ukraine, should a peace deal be struck. But Starmer wants reassurance, too: a US military “backstop”. His defence of much-slandered Zelenskyy may queer his pitch.
Whatever happens, it’s evident the transatlantic alliance is collapsing – and Europe must chart its own course. What can it do? Most agree defence spending must rise, financed by new borrowing. Expanded joint weapons production and procurement is essential; $300bn in frozen Russian assets should be seized to fund Ukraine; bans on supplying Kyiv with advanced weaponry, such as Germany’s Taurus long-range missiles, should be lifted. But Europe also needs to develop collective, pooled military capabilities, as advocated by Macron; or turn Nato into a European-led, no longer US-led alliance. Of its 32 members, only the US and Canada are non-European. Given Putin’s nuclear threats, creating a joint European nuclear shield, constructed around the UK and French deterrents, is an idea whose time has come.
Trump and Putin, the tyrannical twins, deserve each other, but the world does not deserve them. They appear hell-bent on a return to the great power era, to imperial spheres of influence. If these two rogues are allowed to subjugate and sacrifice Ukraine, there will be no peace for anyone.
