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      In this dangerous age, Britain needs to exert soft power as well as the hard stuff | Andrew Rawnsley

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      Shortly before he flew to Washington, Sir Keir Starmer turned up in the Commons, put on his sombre voice and declared: “Everything has changed.” One of the more startling transformations has been to Sir Keir himself. The Labour leader came to office thinking, as did most of those who voted for him, that he was going to be a domestically orientated prime minister with primary ambitions to improve living standards, build lots of homes and rejuvenate public services. That’s what “change”, his one-word election slogan, was supposed to be about. When he originally selected his overriding “five missions”, the defence of the realm didn’t make the cut.His central definition today is as a geopolitically focused prime minister who is promising to spend more on guns, missiles and warplanes and less on international aid. More British bullets will be purchased at the expense of succour to the impoverished and desperate of the world. This shift gives a flintier profile to his leadership, but not in a way that either supporters or opponents anticipated during last summer’s election. Most Labour people don’t quarrel with the argument that Britain has to put up its guard, but a lot of them, including queasy members of the Starmer cabinet, are wriggling uncomfortably about taking the hatchet to the international development budget. In the days since the decision was announced, they have taken to wondering what manner of Labour government is this?The short explanation for this transmogrification is two words and an initial: Donald J Trump. The upheaval in the international order unleashed by the US president has shattered decades-old assumptions about the western alliance. This has had a more profound impact on Sir Keir than any other event. A prime minister who used to earn his living as a human rights lawyer has had a crash course in realpolitik from the nakedly transactional practitioner of great power games who resides on Pennsylvania Avenue.Sir Keir came away from his encounter at the White House on Thursday empty-handed when it came to securing a bankable guarantee that there will be US military cover for any British and French peacekeepers deployed to Ukraine. What the prime minister did win was an apparent blessing for the Chagos Islands deal, puncturing Nigel Farage’s repeated claims that the White House is opposed to it. There were encouraging noises that the UK may swerve US tariffs and pats on the head for Sir Keir from his host for being a “special man” and a “very tough negotiator”. The price was paid in the currency of ingratiation. This was at its most toe-curling when the prime minister delved into his jacket pocket to flourish an invite from the king for the US president to make an “unprecedented”, “truly historic” second state visit to the UK. Excuse me while I find something to retch into. The other tribute to the Maga King was setting a 2027 deadline for lifting British defence spending to 2.5% of GDP with 3% as the ultimate target.Boosting defence spending is both a response to Trump’s demands that Europe pulls its weight and an insurance policy against the withdrawal of American security guarantees. Downing Street reeled at the callous and chilling monstering of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a democratically elected leader fighting for his country’s freedom against tyranny, at the White House on Friday. The shocking ugliness of the televised scene amplified Number 10’s unspoken fears that the Trump regime poses an existential challenge to European security.I’ve been among those anticipating this pivot. Given how menacing the world looked even before Trump’s return to the Oval Office, it was not sustainable to leave Britain’s armed forces in such a parlous condition that our own defence secretary describes them as “hollowed out”. The intelligence chiefs and the top brass have become increasingly clamourous about the growing scale and intensity of threats from a spectrum of malevolent adversaries.The issue then becomes whether the money will be spent well or wastefully. The Ministry of Defence has a rotten record when it comes to equipping the armed forces in a timely and cost-effective way. The onus is now on John Healey and the service chiefs to prove that they can get the maximum bang from the taxpayers’ extra bucks.The pain inflicted on the international aid budget will be brutal. Sir Keir was all crocodile tears when he intoned that regrettably “hard choices” had to be made, as if more money for defence could only be found by stealing it from aid programmes. There were many other options for a government that spends in excess of £1tn a year. These included being less generous towards other demands for spending, bearing down on escalating costs in areas of welfare or raising more from taxation. Though the prime minister claims he did not take this decision “lightly”, the international development budget was targeted because Downing Street and the Treasury reckoned it was the politically least painful option.This is the superficially clever and unashamedly cynical choice when it comes to electoral calculations. Polling suggests that cutting aid is a popular option with around two-thirds of voters. There’s an assumption among Labour strategists that aid is particularly resented by the kind of voter who supported Labour at the election and is now flirting with Reform or has already switched to it. There’s some truth in this analysis, but it is not the whole truth. There’s danger for Labour among the significant wedge of voters who chose the party at the election partly on the basis that it was more compassionate, enlightened and internationalist than the Tories. They didn’t expect Labour to outdo the last Conservative government in slashing the development budget.The case for spending on aid is easily made. On top of the humanitarian good it does, there’s the mitigation against instability, conflict and extremism. It also helps win friends and influence people in other countries who can be useful to the UK in the projection and protection of our national interests. These arguments will be highly familiar to Sir Keir and his cabinet because it was precisely the case they used to make themselves when they berated the Conservatives for raiding the budget. As Labour’s election manifesto put it, international aid helps make “the world a safer, more prosperous place”.The UK used to be able to make the claim that its record on helping the poorer parts of the planet made us a soft power superpower. As recently as 2020, the UK was one of only seven wealthy countries that met the UN target to spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid. The Conservatives cut that to 0.5% under Boris Johnson and it will now be slashed down to just 0.3%. Since a hefty chunk of the budget is being spent on asylum-seekers within Britain, the net amount supporting international development will be even more miserly. Programmes threatened include those alleviating poverty, tackling disease, improving the education of young people and addressing the climate crisis.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis was a humiliation for Annaliese Dodds who was presented with a fait accompli just 24 hours before the cuts were announced. Number 10 clearly reckoned there was a slight risk that she would resign as international development minister, or decided it wasn’t terribly bothered even if she did. She has quit with the warning that denuding the international development budget will only encourage Russia’s aggressive effort to increase its presence worldwide. Blood must be rushing to the head of David Lammy. Justifying the cut has obliged the foreign secretary to stand on his head. It is only very recently that he was wagging a finger at the Americans by telling them it was a “big strategic mistake” to let Elon Musk eviscerate the US development budget. He accompanied that with the warning that China would exploit the vacuum to further its influence.I am being generous when I say that it is disingenuous of Sir Keir and his loyalists to suggest that they were faced with an either/or choice between defence spending in the name of national security and non-defence spending in troubled and distressed places abroad. The UK is an affluent country that likes to think it can punch above its weight. Even when money is tight, this nation is wealthy enough to wield both hard power and soft power.The face of Britain that the Starmer government is now presenting to the world is one that aspires to be more muscular while also looking meaner. Muscular is necessary in the scary new world order. Meaner is a myopic mistake that will render Britain less safe. More

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      Trump administration briefing: pro-Ukraine rallies across US as Trump officials fume at Zelenskyy

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      The disastrous meeting between US president Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday has catalysed a series of pro-Ukraine protests across the US.Protesters took to the streets in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, with hundreds gathering to express support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.Hundreds of protesters also gathered in Waitsfield, Vermont, on Saturday to oppose vice-president JD Vance’s visit to the state for a ski trip with his family.The demonstration had been planned earlier in the week by the Mad River Valley chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots group, but additional protesters said they were motivated to join after watching Vance and Trump’s combative Oval Office meeting.Pro-Ukraine rallies in multiple US cities after chaotic White House meetingVideos posted on social networks showed hundreds of demonstrators gathered in New York’s Times Square, many carrying the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine on their backs. In Los Angeles county, a pro-Ukraine crowd rallied in front of a SpaceX’s facility, and protesters in Boston held an “emergency rally” for “fair peace” for Ukraine at Boston Common.Read the full storyTrump officials fume at Zelenskyy for disregarding advice before meetingInside the Trump White House, officials blamed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, for the meltdown in the Oval Office on Friday, and expressed frustration that he pushed for security guarantees even though the US had made clear they wanted to negotiate that later, according to people familiar with the matter.Read the full storyFiring of watchdog agency chief illegal and would give ‘license to bully officials’, court rulesA US judge on Saturday declared Trump’s firing of the head of a federal watchdog agency illegal in an early test of the scope of presidential power likely to be decided at the US supreme court.Read the full storyKennedy Jr backtracks and says US measles outbreak is now a ‘top priority’Two days after initially downplaying the outbreak as “not unusual”, the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on Friday said he recognized the serious impact of the ongoing measles epidemic in Texas – in which a child died recently – and that the government was providing resources, including protective vaccines.Read the full storyAndrew Cuomo announces run for mayor of New York CityFormer New York state governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday he would run for New York City mayor, an attempt to come back from a sexual harassment scandal that forced him to resign more than three years earlier.Read the full storyEmail shows Musk ally is moving to close office behind free tax-filing program at IRSAn Elon Musk ally installed in the US government said in a late-night email going into Saturday that the office behind a popular free online tax-filing option would be shuttered – and its employees would be let go.Read the full storyMedicaid recipients fear ‘buzzsaw cuts’ for Trump’s agendaRepublicans are considering a rollback of the federal social safety net, particularly Medicaid, which has nearly 80 million enrollees in all 50 states. The budget plan proposes an $880bn reduction in funding for the insurance over the next decade, an amount experts warn would hollow out the program.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Civil rights attorneys sued the Trump administration on Saturday to prevent it from transferring 10 undocumented immigrants detained in the US to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

      A FedEx cargo airplane caught on fire after striking a bird shortly after the plane’s departure from Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday morning, according to officials.

      A decision by regulators to extend the life of two of the oldest reactors in the US decades beyond their original permits has elevated the risk of a nuclear disaster in heavily populated south Florida, environmental groups are warning.

      Singer Angie Stone, known for her hit Wish I Didn’t Miss You, has died in a car crash at the age of 63. More

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      Pro-Ukraine protests erupt across US after Trump and Vance ‘ambush’ Zelenskyy

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      Protests against the Trump administration erupted across the US on Saturday following an unprecedented Oval Office clash, wherein Donald Trump and JD Vance escalated tensions with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Hundreds of protesters gathered in Waitsfield, Vermont, on Saturday morning to oppose the vice-president’s visit to the state for a ski trip with his family.The demonstration had been planned earlier in the week by the Mad River Valley chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots organizing group, but additional protesters said they were motivated to join after watching Vance and Trump’s combative White House meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday.Protesters held signs reading “Vermont stands with Ukraine” and “International embarrassment”, while many waved Ukrainian flags in solidarity. Fox aired video of the protesters, but blurred out signs displaying messages against Vance and in favor of Ukraine.“After what he did yesterday, he crossed the line,” protester Cori Giroux told Vermont Public Radio.On Thursday, the governor, Phil Scott, a Republican who refused to vote for Trump in any of his three runs for the White House, issued a statement calling on Vermonters to be respectful of Vance and his family during their visit.“Please join me in welcoming them to Vermont and hoping they have an opportunity to experience what makes our state, and Vermonters, so special,” he said.While Vance, who admitted Friday he has never been to Ukraine, fled to an undisclosed location to evade protesters, some commentators noted that Zelenskyy, who stayed in Ukraine during Russia’s invasion, was returning to a Kyiv still under attack.The protest followed a contentious confrontation in the Oval Office, where the US president told the Ukrainian leader to make a deal with Russia “or we’e out”. At one point, Trump accused Zelenskyy of not showing enough gratitude for US military and political aid, warning that he was “gambling with world war three”.Zelenskyy countered that he had repeatedly thanked the American people and their leaders for their support, that but Ukrainians did not want to accept a ceasefire with Russia without security guarantees, since Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, had repeatedly broken a previous ceasefire agreement.Following the exchange, European leaders, along with the prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, posted messages of support for Ukraine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLeading Democratic lawmakers also rallied to Zelenskyy’s side, with one, the senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, calling the Oval office meeting an “ambush” of the Ukrainian president by Trump and Vance.The aggressive meeting led to protests in cities and towns across the US, including New York, Los Angeles and Boston, where hundreds gathered to express their support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.Videos posted on social networks showed hundreds of demonstrators gathered in New York’s Times Square, many carrying the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine on their backs. In Los Angeles county, a pro-Ukraine crowd rallied in front of a SpaceX’s facility, and protesters in Boston held an “emergency rally” for “fair peace” for Ukraine at Boston Common.“Ukraine wants fair peace. Ukraine wants the war to end,” the group Boston Supports Ukraine wrote on Facebook. “Ukraine wants all of this on fair terms with security guarantees.”For his part, Zelenskyy posted video of his warm reception in London on social networks, showing crowds of supporters lining the street outside Downing Street, where he was embraced by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer. More

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      Trump officials fume at Zelenskyy for disregarding advice before meeting

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      Inside the Trump White House, officials blamed the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the meltdown in the Oval Office on Friday, and expressed frustration that he pushed for security guarantees even though the US had made clear they wanted to negotiate that later, according to people familiar with the matter.The officials had told their Ukrainian counterparts in advance of the meeting that Trump wanted to sign an economic partnership this week at a ministerial level, as aides worked on the details about security guarantees.Trump saw the minerals deal as the first phase of a broader economic partnership and told aides it showed the US was effectively making a commitment on security guarantees, because the agreement deal would mean the US had a vested interest in Ukraine’s economic prosperity.The officials believed that had all been communicated to Ukraine, as was the advice that senators gave Zelenskyy on Friday morning to praise Trump and not litigate the issue of wanting stronger security guarantees to his face.To Trump’s aides, Zelenskyy did not heed that advice when he expressed skepticism at JD Vance’s view of making peace with Russia and, in their view, lectured the US vice-president on the history of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine that started in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea.That set off a downward spiral in the Oval Office as Vance took issue with being questioned about his description of diplomacy, and clapped back at Zelenskyy: “I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.”Vance cut into Zelenskyy with opprobrium that would have been objectively harsh for an adversary, much less for a putative ally. He appeared to interpret Zelenskyy’s remarks to him as an insult to the US.But the fury with which Vance castigated Zelenskyy for being ungrateful appears to have been the moment when Vance and his team’s personal views about the Ukraine conflict came to the fore.On Thursday, when the prospect of completing the minerals deal was considered more of a probability, Trump had played down his comment calling Zelenskyy a dictator last week. “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that. Next question,” Trump told reporters.That brief moment of levity masked the reality that Trump had workshopped the “dictator” post on Truth Social with Vance before it was sent out last week, according to two people briefed on the matter.Vance had settled on the insult on the basis that Zelenskyy had suspended elections, the two people said, apparently ignoring the fact that Ukraine’s constitution decrees that elections cannot be held during a period of martial law, like the one Zelenskyy declared when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.While other US allies, such as the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, effusively praised Trump in the Oval Office this week, Zelenskyy took a different approach and perhaps unknowingly careened headfirst into Vance’s personal skepticism of him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump officials said privately on Saturday that Trump still wants to sign the minerals deal, but an immediate reset appeared unlikely with Trump scheduled to attend a fundraising dinner for the Maga Inc super political action committee in Palm Beach and Zelenskyy’s departure from the US for the UK.There had been one attempt by Ukraine to save the deal after the meeting blew up when Zelenskyy’s aides suggested that Trump meet with Zelenskyy one-on-one to calm tensions. But Trump officials declined the offer, according to two people familiar with the matter.Trump’s view immediately after the meeting was that it was unproductive to engage in further talks because, to him, Zelenskyy was unwilling to sign a peace agreement with Russia.In the end, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, informed the members of the Ukrainian delegation, who were waiting in the Roosevelt Room, that they needed to leave. Minutes later, Zelenskyy stepped into a black SUV that drove off the White House grounds.Appearing on Fox News that evening, Zelenskyy referred to Ronald Reagan’s dictum that “peace is more than just an absence of war” and suggested that because Putin had broken dozens of ceasefire agreements already, more work was needed to reach “a just and lasting peace”. Trump appeared unimpressed when he boarded Marine One en route to Palm Beach, telling reporters that Zelenskyy needed to say publicly that he wanted to make peace and stop saying “negative things” about Putin. More

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      Trump’s style of petty domination was in full display with Zelenskyy | Moira Donegan

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      The last time Donald Trump did this, it was in secret, and he got impeached over it. In 2019, Donald Trump, on a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded that the Ukrainian president produce – or fabricate – evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, the son of Trump’s eventual opponent in the 2020 election, in exchange for continued US military aide.At the time, Russia had already seized control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea, and was funding violent insurgent groups in the country’s east; it was increasingly clear that a full-scale Russian invasion was coming, as it finally did in 2022. Since the end of second world war, it has been America that checks Russian expansionist ambitions in Europe – America that provided the backstop to the Nato alliance, America that secured the independence of eastern Europe. Trump wanted to condition that longstanding role on Zelenskyy doing him a personal political favor. The international order could be ended, he suggested, if those who depended on him didn’t do enough to indulge his vanity, self-interest and impulsive whims.Something similar was already afoot earlier this week, when Trump summoned Zelenskyy to Washington at the last minute to pressure him to sign a mineral rights deal. Trump wanted to make continued American support for Ukraine’s military effort contingent on American involvement in the country’s mineral industry. But the deal that was offered to Zelenskyy in fact contained no security guarantees: it offered something less like a bilateral agreement and more like a shakedown. Nevertheless Zelenskyy, who is leading a besieged people in danger of losing their country, seemed willing to take it – even after Trump called him a “dictator” last week.But things went downhill from there. Trump seemed determined to antagonize Zelenksyy, making a passive aggressive remark about what the Ukrainian president was wearing when he arrived at the White House. (Sources close to Trump leaked to Semafor that the administration was also displeased with Zelenskyy’s “body language”.) In a meeting in the Oval Office, with film crews and reporters present, the US vice-president, JD Vance, began berating Zelenskyy for what he alleged was the Ukrainian president’s disinterest in diplomacy, by which he seems to have meant a Ukrainian surrender on Russia’s terms.When Zelenskyy countered that Russia has not been a reliable partner, breaking promises to Ukraine repeatedly in past ceasefires, Vance began berating him that he was not grateful enough for US support. “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media,” said Vance, who had initiated the confrontation with cameras in the room, in a practiced cadence. “Have you said thank you once?” Zelenskyy has in fact said “thank you” to the United States many times, including at the outset of the meeting. Both Trump and Vance began raising their voices, ignoring Zelenskyy’s attempts to speak and impugning both his leadership and his personal character. Zelenskyy was soon kicked out, and left the White House without signing the minerals agreement that Trump had nominally summoned him from Ukraine to conclude.It is clear that the post-second world war international order is over. It is clear that Europe will have to look elsewhere, and not to the United States, for its security, and that America will increasingly be isolated among nations, without allies to advance its interests abroad and without friends to share the benefits of science, culture and commerce. Few world leaders, after all, are willing to make deals with such a mercurial partner; fewer still are willing to try, if the attempt will be met with public humiliation in such brutish and bullying style.It is clear that other great powers, including those who do not share what were once America’s stated principles of justice, democracy and human dignity, will fill this vacuum, to America’s detriment. It is clear that Donald Trump does not intend to check Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ambitions – that he will force a deal in the Ukraine war on Russia’s terms, that Zelenskyy himself will likely be exiled or killed in the aftermath, and that other countries in Europe are in danger.In the hours after the meeting, many world leaders publicly voiced their support for Zelenskyy, including the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. Like him, they stand on the edge of an uncertain future. Russia is on the march, indifferent to borders, laws and freedoms, and the United States will no longer stop them. As an American, I was embarrassed by the display. I am also, now, very scared.Because what Trump did to Zelenskyy on Friday is not a departure from his style: it is entirely typical of his domineering approach to politics – one in which violence or harm is threatened to extort his preferred outcomes, and in which good faith negotiation or even basic dignity is shrugged off in favor of petty displays of domination and cruelty.Trump and Vance, I now think, never really intended to have a conversation with Zelenskky: they intended, instead, to try to make themselves look tough on TV by humiliating him. Jake Paul, a boxer, influencer and alleged crypto scammer who has been a booster of Donald Trump, said of the televised shouting match against a head of state, “This isn’t attacking. This is called being a MAN.”Manliness seems to be all that Trump aspires to: and he defines it, almost exclusively as cruelty. Both on the international stage and on the domestic one, Trump and the crowd of racist, misogynist and endlessly immature idiots who surround him will stop at nothing to prove what men they are – no matter how much America suffers, or how many people die, in the process. At the meeting, when Zelenskky tried to persuade Trump to feel differently about the prospect of Russian expansion, Trump cut him off. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel,” he said. “We’re going to feel very good. We’re going to feel very good and very strong.” Maybe he does.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Bewildering’: US media and politicians react to Trump’s televised attack on Zelenskyy

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      One television star turned president visits another far more powerful one on a stage set and attempts to introduce a plot twist of sorts. What could go wrong?The high-stakes White House showdown that unfolded on Friday after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded US security guarantees was deemed a damaging setback to Donald Trump’s goal of forging a peace deal – and a win for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin – by some US political commentators.And others in the US who are closely aligned with Trump cast the president’s meeting with Zelenskyy as a win for his “America first” realignment goals.“It is bewildering to see Mr Trump’s allies defending this debacle as some show of American strength,” the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board said on Saturday, noting that US aims of limiting Russian expansionism without the use of US forces was now “harder to achieve”.The outlet warned that “turning Ukraine over to Mr Putin would be catastrophic for that country and Europe, but it would be a political calamity for Mr Trump too.“Friday’s spectacle won’t make [Putin] any more willing to stop his onslaught” after invading Ukraine in 2022.The New York Times assessed that the derailed Oval Office meeting pointed to Trump’s “determination to scrap America’s traditional sources of power – its alliances among like-minded democracies – and return the country to an era of raw great-power negotiations.”“The three-year wartime partnership between Washington and Kyiv was shattered,” the paper added.Some conservative political figures also hit out at their fellow Republicans Trump and Vance for their handling over the meeting. “I hate to say this … but the United States right now is not the good guys in this,” said Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican congressman from Illinois who once served on a House committee that investigated Trump supporters’ attack on the US Capitol in early 2021.Whether diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the US can be repaired remained an open question Saturday. But the dispute points to the dangers of conducting diplomacy in public, despite the assessment from Trump – a former reality-TV host – that the clash with his Ukrainian counterpart, an ex-actor, made “great television”.“It is going to be incredibly hard to walk back from the kind of animosity we saw in that room today and to walk back some of those statements,” Republican strategist Karl Rove told Fox News. “It could have been done if cameras had not been running, but the only winner out of today is Vladimir Putin.”The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, revealed after the showdown that his meeting with Zelenskyy in Kviv days earlier resulted in a similar outburst. After Friday’s meltdown, Bessent called Zelenskyy’s approach “one of the great diplomatic own goals in history”.“Clearly it very difficult to do an economic deal with a leader that doesn’t want to do a peace deal,” Bessent told Bloomberg.“I’m not sure what he was thinking,” Bessent said of Zelenskyy, who was ultimately asked to leave the White House by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, after Ukrainian diplomatic aides texted that they were prepared to sign the agreed economic rare earth minerals deal.The White House deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, called out what he termed Zelenskyy’s “impertinence” and described the showdown as “one of the great moments in the history of American diplomacy”.“Millions of American hearts swelled with overflowing pride today to watch President Trump put Zelenskyy in his place,” Miller said, without elaborating on what public opinion information he had to justify that belief.Foreign Policy’s Ravi Agrawal wrote: “For a former comedian used to the cameras, it was strange that Zelensky got the script wrong.” Agawal noted that Trump had been testing the boundaries of press attention all week with “freewheeling” discussions in front of the world’s cameras.Such commentary came as Fox News host Bret Baier asked Zelenskyy whether he wanted to apologize to Trump, to which the Ukraine president said: “I’m not sure we did something bad.”“I respect [the] president and I respect [the] American people, and … I think that we have to be very open and very honest,” Zelenskyy told Baier.But arriving in London on Saturday ahead of a summit of British and European leaders, Zelenskyy thanked the US and its leadership while voicing hope for strong relations. “We want only strong relations with America, and I really hope we will have them,” he said.European leaders have stood behind Zelenskyy, with the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, saying he “would never have believed that we would one day have to protect Ukraine from the USA”.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said if someone is gambling with the third world war – as Trump accused Zelenskyy of doing on Friday – it was not Zelenskyy.“If anyone is gambling with World War III, his name is Vladimir Putin,” said Macron, after Trump complained that Zelenskyy had been overly negative about the Russian dictator. More

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      ‘A bigger victory for Putin than any military battle’: Russia gleeful after Trump-Zelenskyy clash

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      Russian officials and Moscow’s media outlets reacted with predictable glee to the dramatic clash between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump at the White House on Friday.Posting on social media, Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s deputy on the security council and former president, called the exchange “a brutal dressing-down in the Oval Office”.He wrote: “Trump told the … clown [Zelenskyy] the truth to his face: the Kyiv regime is playing with the third world war … This is useful. But it’s not enough – we need to stop military support [to Ukraine].”In recent days, concern grew in Moscow as Trump seemed to lean toward a more Zelenskyy-friendly position following visits to Washington by the leaders of Poland, France and Britain, who urged support for Ukraine. Trump had indicated a willingness to back European peacekeepers in Ukraine – a move Kyiv and European governments saw as essential to preventing Moscow from reigniting the war, as it had after previous ceasefires.But any worries the Kremlin may have had faded when Zelenskyy found himself ambushed by Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance.“How Trump and Vance held back from hitting that scumbag is a miracle of restraint,” wrote Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, on Telegram.There has been no comment so far from Putin, who has instead taken a backseat, likely watching the fallout unfold with satisfaction. “Putin doesn’t have to say much right now,” said a source familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking.“It’s clear that he enjoyed the show and now believes he can push for even greater demands in Ukraine. That meeting was a bigger victory for Putin than any of his military battles since the start of the war.”The source predicted that Putin is likely to call Trump in the coming days to argue that Zelenskyy is not someone who can be reasoned with and must be replaced – a sentiment already echoed by some in Moscow as well as Washington.“The White House will now start looking more closely at other candidates for Ukraine’s presidency,” wrote Alexey Pushkov, a member of the upper house of the Russian parliament, on Telegram.View image in fullscreenRegime change in Ukraine has long been a goal for Putin, who has never hidden his desire to install a new leadership in Kyiv which is friendly to Moscow. On Telegram – the primary platform for political discourse in Russia – many influential pro-war bloggers echoed the rhetoric of Trump’s inner circle that portrayed Zelenskyy as an ungrateful child.“Overall, the meeting in the Oval Office once again revealed the true face of Zelenskyy: ungrateful, arrogant, brazen, and boundless,” wrote Rybar, a popular account with links to the Russian defence ministry.For Kremlin insiders, the incident also signified a fundamental shift in the global order, with a White House no longer seen as an enemy but rather as a partner to Moscow – one with whom business and politics can be conducted.“Volodymyr Zelenskyy underestimated the scale of the shift that took place in American politics after Donald Trump’s arrival,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent Russian foreign-policy analyst who heads a council that advises the Kremlin.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLukyanov highlighted Friday’s moment when Trump declared that he was not on Ukraine’s side but viewed himself as a mediator in the conflict. “This is a fundamental shift,” Lukyanov added.But there were also warnings in Moscow that, given Trump’s unpredictable nature, it was too early to declare victory.“In the short term, this tragicomic exchange will undoubtedly weaken Zelenskyy’s position within Ukraine and give Russian diplomacy additional leverage in its dealings with the US,” said Anton Grishanov, a researcher at a thinktank affiliated with Russia’s foreign ministry.“That said, Moscow and Washington still have divergent views on the settlement process, and Trump’s unpredictable temperament could bring plenty of surprises on the path to ending the conflict,” he added.As the dust settles, it’s clear that Friday’s meeting delivered a major blow to Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, while Russia prepares to escalate its offensive against a Ukraine on the verge of losing its most vital military support.“The war continues,” Lukyanov concluded. More

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      in Elections

      Shocked by Trump Meeting, Zelensky and Ukraine Try to Forge a Path Forward

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      For months leading into the American elections last fall, the prospect of a second Trump presidency deepened uncertainty among Ukrainians over how enduring American support would prove in a war threatening their national survival.After President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous meeting with President Trump in the White House on Friday, many Ukrainians were moving toward a conclusion that seemed perfectly clear: Mr. Trump has chosen a side, and it is not Ukraine’s.In one jaw-dropping meeting, the once unthinkable fear that Ukraine would be forced to engage in a long war against a stronger opponent without U.S. support appeared to move exponentially closer to reality.“For Ukraine, it is clarifying, though not in a great way,” Phillips O’Brien, an international relations professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said in an interview. “Ukraine can now only count on European states for the support it needs to fight.”An immediate result was that Ukrainians, including opposition politicians, were generally supportive of Mr. Zelensky on Saturday for not bending to Mr. Trump despite tremendous pressure.Maryna Schomak, a civilian whose son’s cancer diagnosis has been complicated by the destruction of Ukraine’s largest children’s cancer hospital by a Russian missile strike, said that Mr. Zelensky had conducted himself with dignity.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