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      in UK Politics

      What is a ‘coalition of the willing’? Key takeaways from Starmer and Macron’s Ukraine peace talks

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreEmmanuel Macron has said that France and Britain are proposing a limited month-long ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia “in the air, at sea and on energy infrastructure”.But Kyiv has raised reservations about any end to the fighting without security guarantees for the country against any further aggression from Vladimir Putin.Speaking more cautiously, Britain said there were several possible proposals on the table for a possible Ukraine ceasefire. European countries, led by Britain and France, are looking at options for a peace proposal including Ukraine after last week’s Oval Office rupture between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.”There are clearly a number of options on the table,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman said. “I’m just not getting into a running commentary on the options.”In an interview given on his way to the summit, Mr Macron raised the possibility of a one-month ceasefire, although so far there has been no public endorsement from other allies.”Such a truce on air, sea and energy infrastructure would allow us to determine whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting in good faith when he commits to a truce,” French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday. “And that’s when real peace negotiations could start.”European ground troops would only be deployed to Ukraine in a second phase, Mr Macron said in the interview published in Le Figaro.Mr Starmer hosted a summit of European leaders in London on Sunday and said European leaders had agreed to draw up a Ukraine peace plan to present to the United States.Mr Zelensky, asked if he was aware of the plan mentioned by Macron, told reporters in London: “I’m aware of everything.”Keir Starmer hosts European leaders for talks on peace in Ukraine, 2 March 2025 More

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      in US Politics

      Trump has utterly changed the rules of engagement. World leaders must learn this – and quickly | Simon Tisdall

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      It’s not only about Donald Trump. It’s not just about saving Ukraine, or defeating Russia, or how to boost Europe’s security, or what to do about an America gone rogue. It’s about a world turned upside down – a dark, fretful, more dangerous place where treaties and laws are no longer respected, alliances are broken, trust is fungible, principles are negotiable and morality is a dirty word. It’s an ugly, disordered world of raw power, brute force, selfish arrogance, dodgy deals and brazen lies. It’s been coming for a while; the US president is its noisy harbinger.Take the issues one at a time. Trump is a toxic symptom of the wider malaise. For sure, he is an extraordinarily malign, unfeeling and irresponsible man. He cares nothing for the people he leads, seeing them merely as an audience for his vulgar showmanship. His undeserved humiliation of Ukraine’s valiant leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was, he crowed, “great television”. As president, Trump wields enormous power and influence. But Potus is not omnipotent. America’s vanquished Democrats are slowly finding their voice. Connecticut senator Chris Murphy shows how it should be done. Don’t bite your lip. Don’t play by rules Trump ignores. When Trump tried to blame diversity hiring policies for January’s deadly Potomac midair collision, Murphy hit back fiercely.“Everybody in this country should be outraged that Donald Trump is standing up on that podium and lying to you – deliberately lying to you,” Murphy fumed. Trump was at it again when he mugged Zelenskyy last week. But it is not passing unchallenged. Street protests in Britain and the US followed. A campaign gathers pace to block Trump’s planned UK state visit. Opinion polls show growing opposition.It seems strange to talk about “resistance”, as if a Nazi-style wartime occupation is under way. Yet resisting Trump is what our leaders must do. The world’s most admired democracy is held hostage by a far-right clique of thugs and chancers. Its leader calls himself “king” and talks of a presidency for life. Elon Musk and Steve Bannon raise stiff-armed salutes. European neofascists drool adulation from afar.Trump’s minions attack or subvert the agencies of government, the judiciary and free press, terrorising and intimidating those whose loyalty they impugn. Their propagandists, so-called tech barons, have a reach Joseph Goebbels would envy. And just like Vladimir Putin, Russia’s dictator, JD Vance, Trump’s loudmouth hitman, fights a regressive, anti-democratic culture war for “Christian values” and a narrow, bigoted orthodoxy.Ukraine, despite Trump’s betrayal, remains the epitome of resistance. The Ukrainian people are fighting for freedom, sovereignty and democratic self-determination. The issue is simple. Since the US cannot any longer be relied upon, Europe’s leaders know what they must do: supply more and better weapons for Kyiv, such as Taurus missiles; provide more humanitarian aid and finance, obtained by seizing $300bn in frozen Russian funds; and collectively raise their defence spending. From leaders such as Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, we need less polite subservience and more honest defiance.To be effective, European leaders need to put concerted pressure on the US government to provide credible, long-term security guarantees for Ukraine and a backstop for any force that the UK and Europe deploy to monitor the ceasefire. It’s reasonable to expect the US to support a European peace initiative. If it does not, an open rupture with Washington should not be dodged. Equally, they need to put more pressure on Russia, too, to halt its daily slaughter and bombing in Ukraine’s cities. Putin could stop this war today – after all, he alone started it. The fact he refuses to do so is proof, if it were needed, of Zelenskyy’s contention that he cannot be trusted in anything he says. He must be squeezed further.Right now, the opposite is happening. Military analysts warn that a gleeful Kremlin, encouraged by western discord, may step up its offensive in the east and try to capitalise on Ukraine’s demoralisation, perhaps even reinstating Putin’s original plan to seize the whole country. To deter such scenarios, EU leaders, meeting again in Brussels on Thursday after their London weekend talks, must finally bury their differences and draw a line.Starmer says that he and Macron are now developing a plan. Good. The leading European Nato powers should demand an immediate halt to all fighting in Ukraine and Kursk. They should launch a peace process inclusive of all interested parties, without preconditions or prior concessions. If Putin balks, they must withdraw their diplomats, close borders with Russia, move to interdict its exports, mobilise their armed forces – and set a deadline for providing defensive air cover for all unoccupied Ukrainian territory. Russia must be reminded that the west has teeth, too – and will, if forced, resist Putin’s unlawful aggression with everything it has got. Enough of Trump’s scaremongering nonsense about a third world war. Putin is a mass murderer, not a mad murderer. He’s also a coward.Given Trump’s treachery and threats to cut military aid, only a strong, united Europe stands a chance of preventing Ukraine’s defeat on the battlefield. Were Ukraine forced to capitulate to a Kremlin deal and lose its sovereignty, it would set a disastrous precedent for free people everywhere, from Taiwan and Tibet to Moldova, Estonia, Panama and Greenland.Marco Rubio, Trump’s obsequious secretary of state, spoke revealingly last month about his vision of a 21st-century world dominated by the US, Russia and China, and divided into 19th-century geopolitical spheres of influence. It was necessary to rebuild US relations with Moscow, Rubio argued, to maintain this imperious tripartite balance of power. This is the partitioned future that awaits if Trump’s surrender strategy prevails and he and Putin carve up Ukraine.Such a global catastrophe was foretold. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell describes a nightmare world divvied up between three great empires or superstates, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, which deliberately stoke unceasing hostilities. Their shared characteristics: totalitarianism, mass surveillance, repression, immorality, gross inhumanity. Sound familiar? Annalena Baerbock, foreign minister of Germany, a country that knows much about fascism, past and present, recently said that a “new era of wickedness has begun”. Ukrainians, under occupation, are only too familiar with the evil that has descended upon their heads. This is the violent, lawless dystopia towards which the Americans in the Oval Office are leading us. Unless they are stopped. Unless we fight. Unless Europe resists.

      Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator More

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      in US Politics

      Starmer struggles to remain upright under the weight of his contradictions | Zoe Williams

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      If I were Volodymyr Zelenskyy, I’d be thinking, either Keir Starmer has a fiendishly intelligent and subtle mind, or he is bananas. Starmer channelled the giants of British history (everyone we’re not embarrassed of; basically, Winston Churchill) on Sunday. He said we were at a “crossroads in history”.He used the phrase “we are gathered here today”, which I suppose was literally true, as they were, but also had a strange church-y overtone, as if he were trying to borrow the actual authority of God, and he explicitly yoked together the peace and security of Ukraine with that of everyone – all of Europe, but also “us” – Justin Trudeau was there, so presumably Canada’s, too. Pictures of him hugging Zelenskyy ahead were almost tear-jerkingly sincere.He was then asked by journalists following Saturday afternoon’s statement – who came at the question from many directions – whether he considered the US to be inside or outside his plan for a durable peace, and he was trenchant.“Europe and the US have to stand together and that position must be strong”; “I do not accept that the US is an unreliable ally”. It was an absolute head-scratcher – because the US does not seek a sovereign Ukraine, safe in perpetuity from Russian aggression.Donald Trump and JD Vance showed the world what they think of this war on Friday, and they are in an opposite world, Zelenskyy is the one risking the lives of ordinary people, and the war is for him to end – while giving up his nation’s mineral rights to the US and thanking them for the privilege.That meeting in the White House was easily the most gruesome display of bullying and manipulation that televised geopolitics has ever put on. So in what world does the guy you just hugged get to walk away proud and sovereign, with US backing? In what conceivable world is Trump on the same team as these assembled leaders?Starmer was under considerable pressure in his short speech, which we have to hope was just because history had its eyes on him, and not because he’s overwhelmed by the weight of his own contradictions.Words were mangled into non-words, “step” became “stet”, “presume” got funked with “preserve”. And yet, his lawyerly clarity remained. He had five points, they were all different, they all made sense, he said them all in the right order.“We will keep the military aid flowing … to strengthen Ukraine now,” he said, adding that the £2.2bn loan to Zelenskyy would come from frozen Russian assets, and the £1.6bn of UK export finance would be channelled straight back into the UK economy via the air defence industry in Belfast.“Any lasting peace,” he continued, “must ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and security and Ukraine must be at the table”. It’s a simple and defensible point, but it also goes head to head against Trump, who has argued throughout that all it’ll take for a peace deal is him, Putin, a copy of The Art of the Deal and a box of cigars.Third, “in the event of a peace deal, we will keep boosting Ukraine’s own defensive capabilities”, Starmer said, which, again, sounds fair enough and yet at the same time runs directly counter to any of the noises coming out of Washington.Fourth, he will assemble “a coalition of the willing, to defend a deal in Ukraine. Not every nation will feel able to contribute but that can’t mean that we sit back.” Here’s the kicker: “this effort must have US backing”.Well, OK, but who on earth would assume that backing? And what would it cost? Do we have to watch Zelenskyy get beaten up live on air, for the US to fall in with the crowd but still feel like it won?Peter Mandelson had told ABC News earlier that “President Zelenskyy [must give] his unequivocal backing to the initiative that President Trump is taking to end the war and to bring a just and lasting peace to Ukraine,” and seriously, all we can do in the face of that counter-messaging is hope that Mandelson’s forgotten he’s the UK’s diplomat to the US and thinks he’s just a guy on a podcast.Starmer’s fifth point was a bit muddled: “Leaders must meet again very soon. We are at a crossroads in history today. This is not a moment for more talk.” What are they going to do at the meeting, if not talk more? Never mind. Don’t pick holes. We need to believe there’s a grand plan behind all this, because the alternative is just horrendous. More

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      in US Politics

      Bernie Sanders dismisses Republicans’ ‘horrific’ calls for Zelenskyy to resign

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      Independent US senator Bernie Sanders has dismissed as “horrific” claims that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy may have to resign after a diplomatic meltdown in the Oval Office with Donald Trump.Sanders’ comments, in an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday morning, served as a retort to pro-resignation remarks from his fellow US senator Lindsey Graham, which in turn had been affirmed by the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson.“I think that is a horrific suggestion,” Sanders told NBC’s Kristen Welker in the interview. “Zelenskyy is leading a country, trying to defend democracy against an authoritarian dictator, [Vladimir] Putin,” the Russian dictator whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.“I think millions of Americans are embarrassed, are ashamed that you have a president of the United States who says Ukraine started the war, that Zelenskyy is a dictator,” Sanders continued, referring to Trump. “He’s got it exactly backwards.“The people of Ukraine have lost tens of thousands of soldiers, their cities are being bombed as we speak. Our job is to defend the 250-year tradition that we have of being the democratic leader of the world, not turn our backs on a struggling country that is trying to do the right thing.”The comments from Johnson came after Zelenskyy’s contentious meeting on Friday at the White House with Trump and JD Vance. As part of a deal with the US involving minerals in Ukraine, Zelenskyy had sought security guarantees from the US as Ukraine defended itself from Russia’s invasion. That prompted the US vice-president to accuse Zelenskyy of not being grateful enough for US aid – and for the US president to ask Zelenskyy to leave the White House without the minerals deal being signed.Trump is the not first US president during Ukraine’s war to accuse him of being ungrateful for the US military’s assistance.In October 2022, citing four sources familiar with the exchange, NBC News reported that then president Joe Biden lost his temper in a phone call with Zelenskyy in which he told Zelenskyy he had authorized another $1bn in assistance for Ukraine – to which Zelenskyy responded by listing the additional help he needed.NBC reported that Zelenskyy issued a statement praising the US for its aid after that call with Biden. And, in an Twitter/X post on Saturday, Zelenskyy thanked the US and Trump “for all the support … during these three years of full-scale invasion”.Nonetheless, on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio accused Zelenskyy of undermining Friday’s talks by failing to “contain himself” trying to “Ukraine-splain on every issue”.“I hope this could all be reset,” Rubio said.Meanwhile, on Meet the Press on Sunday, Johnson told host Kristen Welker that “something has to change” with Zelenskyy.“Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude or someone else needs to lead the country to do that,” Johnson said.Johnson claimed Zelenskyy should have shown gratitude and thanks to the US in the meeting and argued the push for US mineral rights in Ukraine as part of a peace agreement is “a win for everyone” that will give the US minerals it needs and Ukraine a level of security.On CBS’s Face the Nation, Johnson’s fellow Republican congressman Mike Turner, the chairperson of the House intelligence committee, added: “Instead of taking that win, Zelenskyy turned it into a debate on American security guarantees [on the] peace negotiations.”Turner also said: “[Zelenskyy] needs to not have this precondition of American security guarantees, which are not coming.”The derailed meeting incited pro-Ukraine protests around the US. And leaders across Europe, along with the prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, posted messages of support for Ukraine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“For three years now, Ukrainians have fought with courage and resilience. Their fight for democracy, freedom and sovereignty is a fight that matters to us all,” Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau wrote on X after the White House meeting. “Canada will continue to stand with Ukraine and Ukrainians in achieving a just and lasting peace.”Only 4% of Americans say they support Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, according to the results of a CBS poll published on Sunday.Notably, though, only a slim majority of Americans say they support Ukraine: 52%. And a large minority – 44% – say they do not support either Russia or Ukraine.Speaking to Face the Nation on Sunday, Democratic US senator Mark Kelly of Arizona said Zelenskyy was “cornered” and “bullied” in the Oval Office on Friday during what was “a sad day for our country”.“It was a dumpster fire of diplomacy,” Kelly said.Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski was one Republican US senator who condemned the Trump administration over the way Friday’s meeting with Zelenskyy unfolded.In an X post, she called the meeting a “shocking conversation”.“I know foreign policy is not for the faint of heart, but right now, I am sick to my stomach that the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embrace Putin, a threat to democracy and US values around the world.”Republican US senator James Lankford, for his part, said he disagreed with calls for Zelenskyy to resign.“I’m not interested in calling on the resignation of other world leaders,” Lankford told Meet the Press. “Quite frankly, I think that would spiral Ukraine into chaos right now.” More

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      in US Politics

      Starmer’s diplomatic flurry puts him at centre of attempts to shape Ukraine-Russia deal

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      As Keir Starmer and his aides huddled to discuss their response to Friday’s calamitous White House meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the prime minister’s team pondered whether to issue a statement on social media.Already messages of support were flooding in for the Ukrainian president from other European leaders, including Emmanuel Macron of France and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.But the prime minister decided to stay silent and instead display his backing with action rather than words. After a series of phone calls on Friday night, Starmer brought forward a planned visit by Zelenskyy to London, giving him the opportunity for a symbolic meeting at Downing Street followed by an audience with King Charles.“I picked up the phone to President Trump, and I picked up the phone to President Zelensky,” Starmer told the BBC on Sunday. “That was my response.”Starmer’s flurry of diplomatic activity has resulted in a Franco-British peace effort which puts the prime minister at the centre of European attempts to shape any deal between Moscow and Kyiv.“Starmer’s was a big gesture,” said Bronwen Maddox, the director of the Chatham House thinktank. “Having Zelenskyy here, having that meeting, mattered. There is no need to go rushing around tweeting. He’s now trying to be a bridge between the US and Zelenskyy and Europe, which is a reasonable ambition.”Some even believe this could be Starmer’s “Falklands moment”, referring to the way Margaret Thatcher took on Argentina over the Falkland Islands and in doing so rebooted her flagging premiership. By Sunday morning, Starmer was being backed by the leaders of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.“It’s really important that this summit the prime minister is having today goes well and we support him in that,” the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, said on Sunday.Starmer’s calls with Trump and Zelenskyy on Friday night focused on trying to get the minerals deal between the two countries back on track.One Downing Street official said: “We need to ensure there is a minerals agreement and there is a plan for stopping the fighting and giving Ukraine the security guarantees it needs. The minerals deal is still on the table.”View image in fullscreenOfficials rejected reports that Starmer’s call with Zelenskyy had been “emotional”, but said the Ukrainian president had clearly found his encounter with Trump “bruising”. The two men agreed that Zelenskyy would visit London 24 hours earlier than planned, allowing him time for a longer meeting in Downing Street before a trip to Sandringham on Sunday to meet King Charles.Officials said the visit to see the king was a deliberate message to Washington, where Trump is eagerly awaiting his own audience with the monarch, with US officials pushing for a state visit as soon as this year.Starmer then spent Saturday around the cabinet table in discussions with Jonathan Powell, his national security adviser, and other senior officials. They had come to the conclusion there was little they could do to restart US-Ukrainian talks, so decided to come up with an alternative plan to help shape the peace deal.The plan they hit upon was a separate set of discussions, this time involving Britain, France, Ukraine and potentially one or two others, to formulate their own prospective deal to present to the US. The talks would provide a counterbalance to those between the US and Russia which have excluded Ukraine and European countries.Starmer called Macron, who welcomed the idea. But there was one more hurdle to clear: the prime minister had to call the US president for the second time in two days to make sure he was not opposed.Officials briefed on the call would not say what Trump’s reaction to the idea was, or even whether he indicated he would not stand in the way. But the prime minister was sufficiently emboldened by the conversation that he decided to announce the talks on the BBC on Sunday morning.“The second Trump call was much more focused on not wanting to go back over what has happened, but saying, if we move forward with this other plan, would you be interested in us doing that?” said one British official. “There is no point in us doing this if the US didn’t feel there was space for that. Clearly we are doing it, so we thought it was a worthwhile exercise.”Saturday evening culminated with Starmer’s Downing Street talks with Zelenskyy. In front of the assembled press, the prime minister took the unusual step of leaving No 10 to greet Zelenskyy from his car, before walking him back down the street again after their meeting.View image in fullscreen“And as you heard from the cheers on the street outside, you have full backing across the United Kingdom,” Starmer told his Ukrainian counterpart. “We stand with you, with Ukraine, for as long as it may take.”Sunday was yet another intense day of diplomacy for the prime minister, who began by speaking to the leaders of all three Baltic states and then hosted the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, at Downing Street. Meloni, who arguably has the best relations with Trump of any European leader, has called for an immediate summit between the US, EU and other allied countries to discuss Ukraine.From there, Starmer travelled to Lancaster House for his defence summit, which was attended by representatives from across Europe, as well as officials from Turkey and Nato.British officials are aware that all this activity may result in very little. They have yet to secure their main objective – a promise from Trump to offer military backing to any British and European troops posted to secure a new border between Russia and Ukraine.But for now, Downing Street is delighted that the prime minister has managed to navigate the turbulent geopolitics of a Trump-led US, and in doing so prove that post-Brexit Britain can still play a global leadership role.“It’s a testament to the relationship the prime minister has with the presidents of both America and Ukraine that he was able to host Zelenskyy and speak to Trump not once but twice over the days,” said one official.Additional reporting by Angela Giuffrida in Rome More

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      in US Politics

      Trump said Zelenskyy ‘does not have the cards’. But how well is he playing his own hand? | Olga Chyzh

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      The White House meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be remembered as far more than just a diplomatic disaster. It marked the end of international politics as we know it, and was a harbinger for the sunset of Pax Americana. Zelenskyy, reeling from the meeting, arrived in London on Saturday to attend a defence summit with other European leaders. Thanks to Trump’s performance, those leaders now have clarity on where the US government stands on the war in Ukraine – and, more broadly, on how US foreign policy may look in future.It is hard to overstate what a departure this is. Since the end of the second world war, the US has been the primary architect and guarantor of an intricate network of global institutions anchored by Nato, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund. Together, these partners crafted a security umbrella whose benefits far outweighed its expense. It produced political stability and provided US and European companies with unrivalled access to markets and resources. The US was all too happy to share the gains of this order with its allies, and, to a lesser extent, with its rivals and adversaries.True, the US reaped the greatest benefits: it set the terms of trade and projected its influence on to the globe. But the order was inclusive, since its institutions were designed to deliver benefits that everyone could enjoy, even if access was unequal. It had plenty of critics, drawing envy and ire from adversaries such as Russia and China, whose leaders regularly grumbled about unfairness and demanded their seats at the table. Over time, the US and its allies grew accustomed to the status quo, comfortable and complacent to the point of letting their military stockpiles deplete and degrade. By contrast, Russia and China cultivated networks of propagandists, corrupt officials and saboteurs, who shared a common goal: to identify the west’s weak points, amplify political instability and undermine western unity.They could hardly have hoped for a more vulnerable and divided west. From the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, to rising nationalist movements across Europe and, most consequentially, Trump’s ascendance to the presidency, the last decade has been marked by events that have weakened transatlantic ties and eroded security arrangements. Trump’s criticisms of Nato and other longstanding alliances have helped to convince American voters that US allies are more of a burden than a benefit.In this context, the meeting with Zelenskyy, when Trump told the Ukrainian leader “make a deal or we’re out”, was not entirely surprising. The president has consistently framed foreign policy in transactional terms, prioritising one-time payouts over the long-term dividends that arise from international stability and cooperation. His approach reflects a total indifference to defending democratic principles or countering authoritarian influence, whether in Russia or elsewhere. His foreign policy is defined by unpredictability, quick gains and self-interest.Trump is also uninterested in confronting aggressors. In fact, he’s not averse to trading other’s security for his own gain. As Zelenskyy pointed out, the US is shielded from Russian aggression by an ocean, a luxury that Europe does not enjoy. Trump appears content to let Europe manage its own security, ignoring the reality that European stability is intrinsically linked to US economic and strategic interests. In his willingness to work with Vladimir Putin, he is ignoring the fact that the existing international system has overwhelmingly benefited the US. Ironically, the world order that Putin advocates for – one shaped by imperial spheres of influence, rather than collective security – would come at significant costs to the US.In his exchange with Zelenskyy, Trump invoked a metaphor of a card game. Yet his own cards are spread across the table. He will probably use the fallout from the meeting to convince domestic Republican holdouts to halt sending decommission-ready military equipment to Ukraine and lift sanctions against Russia. He and Putin will probably extol the dubious economic opportunities that America could seize in Russia, trading secure and lucrative European markets for the higher risk, smaller Russian market, which his Maga-aligned elites may embrace.Europe can either stand back, accept this new reality, and hope that Russia’s imperial ambitions stop at Ukraine. Or it can adapt to a world without US support, where it has to take a more assertive role in its own defence and strategic decision-making. Historically, cohesion across the continent has been difficult to achieve. The stakes are now higher than ever.For Ukraine, the path forward remains difficult. This meeting did not cost it US support – that was set in motion by Trump’s re-election. Zelenskyy was right not to be bullied into a ceasefire on Russia-dictated terms. Without security guarantees, such an agreement would be disastrous for Ukraine. Trump would claim an easy diplomatic victory, using it as a justification to cut military aid and lift sanctions on Russia. But as Zelenskyy noted, Putin has a history of breaking ceasefires. With sanctions eased, Russia would simply rearm and prepare for another offensive against a weakened Ukraine. By resisting Trump’s pressure, Zelenskyy may still face the same outcome, but at least Ukraine remains unshackled from a one-sided truce.Even without US support, Ukraine is in a stronger position militarily and diplomatically than it was in early 2022. As dire as things look at the moment, international politics is rarely static, and Trump himself is known for reversals. It remains possible that he could again shift course, signing the minerals deal with Ukraine and mending relations with European allies. There is always a small chance that the meeting was just an embarrassing and emotional mishap. But with its sovereignty at stake, chance is not something Ukraine can count on.

      Olga Chyzh researches political violence and repressive regimes. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto More

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      in Elections

      Europe Races to Repair a Split Between the U.S. and Ukraine

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      European leaders raced on Sunday to salvage Ukraine’s relationship with the United States, after a bitter rupture last week between President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump. They pledged to assemble a European “coalition of the willing” to develop a plan for ending Ukraine’s war with Russia, which they hope could win the backing of a skeptical Mr. Trump.Gathering in London at the invitation of Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, the leaders vowed to bolster support for Ukraine. But they also expressed hope that Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump could repair their breach, underscoring Europe’s reluctance to cast off a trans-Atlantic alliance that has kept the peace for 80 years.“We have to bridge this,” Mr. Starmer said on Sunday to the BBC before the leaders began arriving at Lancaster House, near Buckingham Palace. “We have to find a way where we can all work together.”Mr. Starmer said he believed that despite Mr. Trump’s anger toward Mr. Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday, the president was committed to a lasting peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. He said Britain and France, working with other European countries, would develop their own plan with Mr. Zelensky.Details of the plan were sketchy, but Mr. Starmer suggested that the Europeans could use it as a basis to persuade Mr. Trump to commit to American security guarantees. Britain and France have already pledged to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force and are trying to enlist other countries across Europe.“I think we’ve got a step in the right direction,” Mr. Starmer said, though he added that “this is a moment of real fragility in Europe.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Kremlin says US foreign policy pivot ‘largely coincides with our vision’

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      The Kremlin said on Sunday that the dramatic pivot in the foreign policy of the US “largely” coincides with its own vision, with Donald Trump described as having “common sense”.The US president, who has often said he respects his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, has worked to build ties with Moscow since taking office in January, including twice siding with Russia in UN votes.“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told a reporter from state television. “This largely coincides with our vision.”Peskov added: “There is a long way to go, because there is huge damage to the whole complex of bilateral relations. But if the political will of the two leaders, President Putin and President Trump, is maintained, this path can be quite quick and successful.”Peskov made the comments on Wednesday but they were only made public on Sunday, two days after Trump defended Putin during a fiery clash with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the Oval Office on Friday.Trump has upended US policy on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which marked its third anniversary last week. On Friday, he told Zelenskyy he was losing the war and had “no cards” to play.Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, also praised Trump for his “commonsense” aim to end the war in Ukraine and accused European powers, who have rallied to support Zelenskyy and are meeting with the Ukrainian leader at a summit in London on Sunday, of seeking to prolong the conflict.Trump “is a pragmatist”, Lavrov told the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, according to a transcript released by the foreign ministry. “His slogan is common sense. It means, as everyone can see, a shift to a different way of doing things.”Lavrov said the US still sought to be the world’s most powerful country and that Washington and Moscow would never see eye to eye on everything, but they could resort to pragmatism when interests coincided.The Kremlin often rebuked the former US president Joe Biden, accusing him in November of “adding fuel to the fire” by allowing Kyiv to use long-range missiles for strikes against Russia.Lavrov said that after Biden’s administration, “people have come in who want to be guided by common sense. They say directly that they want to end all wars, they want peace. And who demands a ‘continuation of the banquet’ in the form of a war? Europe.”But, Lavrov said, “the goal is still Maga (Make America Great Again)”, referring to Trump’s political slogan. “This gives a lively, human character to politics. That’s why it’s interesting to work with him.” More