Friday’s confrontation between President Trump and President Zelensky shocked the world. The most powerful man on the planet was trying to bully the leader of a country fighting murderous subjugation by a tyrant. It was an odious spectacle.
But perhaps it is a good thing it happened when it did. Other leaders of the free world, many of them gathered in London today, should study not just the last four minutes when the Oval Office meeting fell apart, but the whole 50-minute show. Then they will know what is needful.
This evening, Sir Keir Starmer led them in a series of measures designed to be as positive as possible about helping Ukraine without inflaming any divisions with the United States. His proposed “coalition of the willing” is trying to show Trump that it wants to help his peace efforts by underwriting those efforts with the security guarantees Ukraine needs.
The King’s reception of Zelensky at Sandringham last night is a dignified way of indicating to Ukraine and the world that Britain’s heart is in the right place. The tweet by Lord Mandelson, our new ambassador in Washington, that Zelensky should now give “unequivocal backing” to Trump’s initiative is evidence that Britain’s head might be somewhere else.
Sir Keir’s “bridging” approach must be right at this stage, but the gulf is ocean-wide.
Do not imagine that Friday’s clash was just an outbreak of Trumpian temper at being “disrespected” by someone who dared to disagree with him. It was the President’s choice to conduct the conversation in front of the media. He himself said that the American people should see this “great television”.
The meeting laid bare that Ukraine means nothing to Trump, beyond a collection of what he keeps calling “raw” – but means “rare” – earths which America should exploit. He has no interest in it being a free, sovereign country, and is not greatly concerned about the wider effects of a Russian victory on the peace and freedom of Europe. It’s “a tough neighbourhood”, he shrugs. He is not necessarily rejecting Nato, but he is intimidating Ukraine.
In his mind, Ukraine and Joe Biden are inextricably combined, so Ukraine deserves contempt. It was Biden’s fault that Putin invaded and – as he constantly asserts – if he, Trump, had been around “it would never have started”. Biden “didn’t speak to Russia”, whereas Trump and Putin have “very good conversations”.
Trump believes that the Biden administration, via Joe’s son, Hunter, had a corrupt relationship with Ukraine. He remains annoyed with Zelensky personally for deflecting his demand, in a 2019 phone call, that he investigate the Hunter Biden affair.
Trump is also angry that the Democrats tried so hard to smear him over unproved Russian connections. His sympathy here is with poor, wronged Vladimir: “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me”, he told Zelensky, as if the two had been comrades-in-arms: “He had to suffer through the Russia hoax.” He is absolutely consistent in never blaming Putin for anything important. That is sinister.
Because, for whatever reasons, Trump and Putin are friends, Trump discounts everything Zelensky says about the Russian President. One of Zelensky’s strongest points is that a ceasefire could do nothing but harm because Putin has already broken 25 of them. In Trump’s eyes, that is Biden’s fault. Putin “never broke with me.”
By Trumpian logic, Zelensky must be bearing an unreasonable grudge against Putin. The President criticised Zelensky for “the hatred he has for Putin”: “It’s not a love-match... that’s why you’re in that situation”.
It follows, for Trump, that Zelensky’s demand for security guarantees behind any deal is unnecessary. “Let me make the deal first”, he hustles, that is “95 per cent of it”: then security will follow. The presence of American people, “digging, digging, digging” for the Ukrainian minerals he wishes to secure, will mean that no one will go back to fighting.
Zelensky must insist on security guarantees because his country has lethal experience of the value of Putin’s assurances, but to Trump this makes him the block to peace. “You’re gambling with World War III,” Trump told him when, towards the end, tempers rose, “You’re not acting at all thankful.”
Although the discussion the world witnessed on Friday was, in a sense, spontaneous, some interventions were clearly planned.
Quite early on, Brian Glenn, the journalist boyfriend of the extreme Trumpian congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, suddenly asked Zelensky why he was not wearing a suit. It was his second consecutive question, and Zelensky answered only his first. Perhaps fearful the question might have been missed, Trump intervened: “Brian,” he helpfully prompted, “you had a second question?” Brian was happy to oblige, “A lot of Americans have problems” with Zelensky being thus dressed for the White House, he said. Zelensky’s riposte that he would come back, suited, once the war was over, was to the point.
This diversion might have sounded strange, but the suit jibe rang a bell with me. When I was in Ukraine last week, I found that anti-Zelensky propagandists, who are stirring at present, throw this at him, suggesting that his semi-combat dress vaingloriously presents him as a war leader.
Trumpians are grabbing this idea, just as they use memes produced by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, such as the lack of elections, ignoring the fact that fair elections are impossible when their partially occupied country is fighting for its life. Undermining Zelensky’s democratic legitimacy is the intended prelude to a coup d’etat.
The unfriendly interventions by the Vice-President, JD Vance, also seemed on cue. By attacking Zelensky for being discourteous, he opened the way for Trump to be discourteous back. Trump ended the meeting, as if Zelensky had disgraced himself. He had simply put his country’s case, as a war leader must.
Last Monday in Kyiv, which already seems an age ago, Europeans leaders and officials gathered to mark the third anniversary of Putin’s invasion. I watched them queue to vow support for Ukraine. But since then, the Zelensky/Trump row has made it unambiguous that the President of the United States repeats the lines of the President of Russia. If Zelensky ever does kiss his ring, it will be, in effect, as a captive, not an ally.
So the continentals and Sir Keir Starmer have to ask themselves more seriously than ever before if they mean what they say. Does the peace of Europe depend upon a free Ukraine? If so, which nations of Europe are prepared to defend that peace without America? And can they?
One can discern an arc of resistance to Putin which stretches from Britain in the West, possibly includes France, and embraces Scandinavia, the Baltic states and Poland to the East. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni, might also help.
But what of the rest, above all of Germany, which now has nearly 30 per cent of the seats Bundestag held by Russia-appeasing parties of the far Left and far Right?
Can we agree on what to let ourselves in for? Will the coalition of the willing will the necessary means?
Friday’s confrontation between President Trump and President Zelensky shocked the world. The most powerful man on the planet was trying to bully the leader of a country fighting murderous subjugation by a tyrant. It was an odious spectacle.
But perhaps it is a good thing it happened when it did. Other leaders of the free world, many of them gathered in London today, should study not just the last four minutes when the Oval Office meeting fell apart, but the whole 50-minute show. Then they will know what is needful.
This evening, Sir Keir Starmer led them in a series of measures designed to be as positive as possible about helping Ukraine without inflaming any divisions with the United States. His proposed “coalition of the willing” is trying to show Trump that it wants to help his peace efforts by underwriting those efforts with the security guarantees Ukraine needs.
The King’s reception of Zelensky at Sandringham last night is a dignified way of indicating to Ukraine and the world that Britain’s heart is in the right place. The tweet by Lord Mandelson, our new ambassador in Washington, that Zelensky should now give “unequivocal backing” to Trump’s initiative is evidence that Britain’s head might be somewhere else.
Sir Keir’s “bridging” approach must be right at this stage, but the gulf is ocean-wide.
Do not imagine that Friday’s clash was just an outbreak of Trumpian temper at being “disrespected” by someone who dared to disagree with him. It was the President’s choice to conduct the conversation in front of the media. He himself said that the American people should see this “great television”.
The meeting laid bare that Ukraine means nothing to Trump, beyond a collection of what he keeps calling “raw” – but means “rare” – earths which America should exploit. He has no interest in it being a free, sovereign country, and is not greatly concerned about the wider effects of a Russian victory on the peace and freedom of Europe. It’s “a tough neighbourhood”, he shrugs. He is not necessarily rejecting Nato, but he is intimidating Ukraine.
In his mind, Ukraine and Joe Biden are inextricably combined, so Ukraine deserves contempt. It was Biden’s fault that Putin invaded and – as he constantly asserts – if he, Trump, had been around “it would never have started”. Biden “didn’t speak to Russia”, whereas Trump and Putin have “very good conversations”.
Trump believes that the Biden administration, via Joe’s son, Hunter, had a corrupt relationship with Ukraine. He remains annoyed with Zelensky personally for deflecting his demand, in a 2019 phone call, that he investigate the Hunter Biden affair.
Trump is also angry that the Democrats tried so hard to smear him over unproved Russian connections. His sympathy here is with poor, wronged Vladimir: “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me”, he told Zelensky, as if the two had been comrades-in-arms: “He had to suffer through the Russia hoax.” He is absolutely consistent in never blaming Putin for anything important. That is sinister.
Because, for whatever reasons, Trump and Putin are friends, Trump discounts everything Zelensky says about the Russian President. One of Zelensky’s strongest points is that a ceasefire could do nothing but harm because Putin has already broken 25 of them. In Trump’s eyes, that is Biden’s fault. Putin “never broke with me.”
By Trumpian logic, Zelensky must be bearing an unreasonable grudge against Putin. The President criticised Zelensky for “the hatred he has for Putin”: “It’s not a love-match... that’s why you’re in that situation”.
It follows, for Trump, that Zelensky’s demand for security guarantees behind any deal is unnecessary. “Let me make the deal first”, he hustles, that is “95 per cent of it”: then security will follow. The presence of American people, “digging, digging, digging” for the Ukrainian minerals he wishes to secure, will mean that no one will go back to fighting.
Zelensky must insist on security guarantees because his country has lethal experience of the value of Putin’s assurances, but to Trump this makes him the block to peace. “You’re gambling with World War III,” Trump told him when, towards the end, tempers rose, “You’re not acting at all thankful.”
Although the discussion the world witnessed on Friday was, in a sense, spontaneous, some interventions were clearly planned.
Quite early on, Brian Glenn, the journalist boyfriend of the extreme Trumpian congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, suddenly asked Zelensky why he was not wearing a suit. It was his second consecutive question, and Zelensky answered only his first. Perhaps fearful the question might have been missed, Trump intervened: “Brian,” he helpfully prompted, “you had a second question?” Brian was happy to oblige, “A lot of Americans have problems” with Zelensky being thus dressed for the White House, he said. Zelensky’s riposte that he would come back, suited, once the war was over, was to the point.
This diversion might have sounded strange, but the suit jibe rang a bell with me. When I was in Ukraine last week, I found that anti-Zelensky propagandists, who are stirring at present, throw this at him, suggesting that his semi-combat dress vaingloriously presents him as a war leader.
Trumpians are grabbing this idea, just as they use memes produced by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, such as the lack of elections, ignoring the fact that fair elections are impossible when their partially occupied country is fighting for its life. Undermining Zelensky’s democratic legitimacy is the intended prelude to a coup d’etat.
The unfriendly interventions by the Vice-President, JD Vance, also seemed on cue. By attacking Zelensky for being discourteous, he opened the way for Trump to be discourteous back. Trump ended the meeting, as if Zelensky had disgraced himself. He had simply put his country’s case, as a war leader must.
Last Monday in Kyiv, which already seems an age ago, Europeans leaders and officials gathered to mark the third anniversary of Putin’s invasion. I watched them queue to vow support for Ukraine. But since then, the Zelensky/Trump row has made it unambiguous that the President of the United States repeats the lines of the President of Russia. If Zelensky ever does kiss his ring, it will be, in effect, as a captive, not an ally.
So the continentals and Sir Keir Starmer have to ask themselves more seriously than ever before if they mean what they say. Does the peace of Europe depend upon a free Ukraine? If so, which nations of Europe are prepared to defend that peace without America? And can they?
One can discern an arc of resistance to Putin which stretches from Britain in the West, possibly includes France, and embraces Scandinavia, the Baltic states and Poland to the East. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni, might also help.
But what of the rest, above all of Germany, which now has nearly 30 per cent of the seats Bundestag held by Russia-appeasing parties of the far Left and far Right?
Can we agree on what to let ourselves in for? Will the coalition of the willing will the necessary means?