View from Washington: Ukraine has finally given up on Trump

For more than a year after Donald Trump returned to the White House, Ukraine held out hope — at least publicly — of winning him over. Trump, who revealed his affection for Russia’s Vladimir Putin again and again, largely halted American military aid to Kyiv.

But now Kyiv appears to have given up on the United States. Using language that would until recently have been unthinkable, Zelensky has indicated that he no longer views the United States as a reliable ally and, even more astonishingly, that all of Europe needs to start moving on from the transatlantic relationship, ‘The Atlantic’ stresses.

Zelensky argued that, if the U.S. is truly planning to withdraw from NATO, as Trump has threatened, European democracies need a whole new security architecture. To defend itself from Russia without American assistance, Zelensky suggested, the European Union would need the capabilities of the nonmembers Norway, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Ukraine.

He was drawing a sharp contrast with European leaders who, in the past 15 months, have desperately pretended that the United States remains committed to its traditional allies. In the process, some leaders have debased themselves, as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte did when he referred to Trump as “Daddy.” (Rutte, who is Dutch, subsequently described the comment as a “language problem.”) No one wanted to admit that Trump’s return had made the U.S. a threat to European security.

Ukraine’s new willingness to speak honestly results from a combination of factors. The United States has reduced what little weaponry it was selling to Ukraine to conserve supplies for its war against Iran. Although at various points Trump has discussed putting harsh sanctions on Russia — perhaps to appease pro-Ukraine sentiments within his own party — he has lately not bothered with such gestures. Most discouraging for Ukrainians, the Trump administration has frequently pressured them to cede their territory and fellow citizens in the Donbas to Putin as part of a peace deal.

Those developments have persuaded Zelensky and others to speak the truth about America’s tightening alignment with Putin and to warn other European countries about the danger they now face.

...The American magazine is ignoring an important aspect of what's happening globally.

With Trump's involvement in the war against Iran, Ukraine and Zelenskyy along with it, has lost its appeal to the US. As for Europe, Trump is now pressuring it through economic and energy levers to weaken his rival – the EU.

So, Kyiv and Brussels, two clients Trump rejected, are now ganging up against Russia, and now – Trump. Zelenskyy, to make sure no one forgets him, is making sweeping statements. What else can he do?

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