The verbal pummelling of Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House last week was an ugly moment of bitter truth. We saw the West tearing itself apart thanks to Donald Trump’s vanity and J.D. Vance’s disdain for the Ukrainian leader.
If there is anything positive to be taken from the uncomfortable spectacle, it is that Europe now understands it has to take its defence much more seriously. And it is a mercy that negotiations between Zelensky and Trump have not been derailed for good. The Ukrainian President spent the week doing what his US counterpart accused him of failing to do: thanking the US for military and other aid it has received since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago. Zelensky appears keen to return to the table to discuss a minerals deal. The US would gain some mineral rights in return for an implied guarantee that the US would act against future Russian aggression.
Yet Trump’s awful treatment of Zelensky has still done great damage. He called him a ‘dictator’ for failing to hold nationwide elections when much of the country is a war zone (a comment the US President bizarrely later denied making). With this, and in telling Zelensky that he ‘holds no cards’, Trump emboldened Putin. The Russian leader is certain to demand most, if not all, of the land his forces have occupied since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Putin could then be further empowered to turn his attention to Moldova and possibly the Baltic states too – using the same flimsy excuse that ethnic Russians in those countries need protecting.
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