Volodymyr Zelenskyy

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      Trump is tearing up the transatlantic alliance. Can Starmer’s US visit change the weather?

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      In November 1940, Winston Churchill sent a telegram to Franklin Roosevelt expressing relief both at the US president’s re-election and the victory of his anti-appeasement policy. “Things are afoot which will be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe, and in expressing the comfort I feel that the people of the United States have once again cast these great burdens upon you, I must now avow my sure faith that the lights by which we steer will bring us safely to anchor,” he wrote.As Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron prepare to meet a very different US president, things are once again afoot that will live long in the memory – but this time the lights seem to be going out on a ship adrift in a sea of chaos.In his Arsenal of Democracy speech, Roosevelt spurned those who asked to “throw the US weight on the scale in favour of a dictated peace”. He also saw past Nazi Germany’s “parade of pious purpose” to observe “in the background the concentration camps and ‘servants of God’ in chains”.View image in fullscreenDonald Trump, by contrast, glories in the prospect of a US-dictated peace and in Russia he sees no gulags.Starmer’s nightmare is that the transatlantic alliance forged in the second world war is crumbling before his eyes. The inconceivable has become not just possible, but probable, or as Macron put it on Wednesday: “Do not think that the unthinkable cannot happen, including the worst.”If the central tenets of the postwar order are disintegrating, one of the casualties is likely to be Britain’s self-appointed role as the US’s bridge to Europe. There is a macabre circularity that France and the UK feel it necessary to plead with Trump to recall the US’s history as the generous country that kept the flame of freedom alive in Europe.Margaret MacMillan, a professor of international history at Oxford, fears Trump will not listen to their case. “Never underestimate the importance of individuals in history, especially if they wield a great deal of power, and Donald Trump has got his hands on the levers of the most powerful country in the world. He is not controllable by anyone … He does not have a clear set of policies, but a set of likes and dislikes. Decisions are based on emotion and whim and last moment ideas,” she said.“Even great powers need allies – and yet he is turning on his allies.”Europe was braced psychologically for Trump to refuse further military aid to Ukraine on the basis the US had dispensed enough, and the killing had become a senseless stalemate. But it was never foreseen that in turning off the tap he would parrot Russian propaganda, baselessly accusing Ukraine’s leadership of starting the war, and falsely describing Volodymr Zelenskyy as a “dictator”.View image in fullscreenSuch language risks in effect Trump’s America swapping sides in the war. How does Europe react?The necessary first response, out of self-respect, was to reject the US president’s framing of the war, as did the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, when he described Trump’s words as “an unprecedented distortion of reality and extremely dangerous”.The second step has been to appeal to those with sense in the US that their leader is taking them down a disastrous path. But Trump long ago cleansed the current Republican party of politicians that challenged his rule. Republicans have discovered challenging Trump was not a profitable career path.Trump’s chief consideration in assembling his foreign policy team has been loyalty, not talent. It leaves foreign diplomats with few pressure points to exploit.H R McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser during his first term, insisted there were still ways to talk Trump around. “He is reflexively contrarian – if you go to him and say everybody agrees on this Mr President, he will do the opposite just to spite you. The technique I would use is to say: ‘This is what Vladimir Putin wants you to say, and this is why he wants you to say it.’ I would show to him what is happening in Russian markets and say: ‘You have just given this psychological gift to the Russians who are celebrating.’“The Europeans need to come out with a clear message: ‘Whatever you do, do not give Putin what he wants upfront.’ What does he want upfront? Sanctions relief. Keep him backed into the damned corner.”Kim Darroch, the former UK ambassador to Washington, suggested Macron and Starmer force Trump to focus on the details, such as how he intends to apply pressure on Putin – something that is absent from his current discourse.View image in fullscreenAlexander Stubb, the Finnish president, suggested Trump simply did not understand what might be at stake for the US. He said: “We have to convince the US that Ukraine’s future is a decisive question not only for Ukraine, but also for European security, the international system and the US’s status as a great power. Our duty is to make clear what the consequences would be if Putin gets what he wants.”Macron and Starmer know Europe’s hand badly needs strengthening, especially since it became clear that Europe was not only going to be sidelined in talks between Russia and the US, but would still be expected to police any settlement – without any help from the Americans.In Paris, first with the major European leaders in person, and then by video with the smaller EU countries, Macron tried to adopt the role of convener in chief. In the words of the former French defence official Camille Grand, the aim was to show Europe “deserved to be at the table but not on the menu”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt was a first attempt to show that if indeed the US expects Europe to provide a peacekeeping/reassurance force inside Ukraine, it could respond so long as preconditions were met – including US logistical support.But with little time to prepare, the Paris meeting did not go well. Scholz, facing federal elections this weekend, left early describing discussion of troops as premature, and insisting nothing could be done without US support. Giorgia Meloni arrived late, and was suspicious that the US was being undermined. Smaller nations were nervous of an electoral backlash.Only Starmer, after four hours of talks with British defence officials, went public with a firm if imprecise offer of troops – contingent on a US “backstop” since without its air, logistics and communications support, the operation would not be safe. It was a bold move by the normally cautious Starmer, but he was nervous of the corrosive impact Trump’s remarks would have on Ukrainian troop morale. Macron characterised it as a “dissuasion” force, saying “if there is no such dissuasion, Russia will not keep its word”.Western officials added that the purpose of the US backstop would be to make sure a European landforce would not be challenged by Russia – which would require air support and efforts to make the Black Sea safe international waters.The landforce would not need to be as high as 30,000, since the US backstop – probably US aircraft based in Romania and Lask airbase in Poland – would be ready to respond if the ceasefire was about to be breached.The European landforce would provide confidence to Ukrainians, undertaking protection tasks, and in the process encouraging Ukrainians abroad to return to their homeland.So the kernel of the talks in Washington will be persuasive and probing. Trump will be asked to drop his objection to a US backstop, and to lay out clearly how and on what terms he expects Putin permanently to end the war.But Trump’s vicious dismissal of the “minor comic” Zelenskyy and the US refusal to describe Russia as the aggressor in planned UN and G7 statements do not bode well for a ceasefire – let alone a peace treaty.Such comments show how Trump’s apparent personal grudge against Zelenskyy has become hard policy, and reflect his framing of the conflict in which Ukraine is not the victim, but the aggressor – and so does not deserve a seat at the negotiating table.As Richard Haass, the director of the Council on Foreign Relations, said from the US perspective: “The phase in which Vladimir Putin is treated as a pariah is over.”Opposition to Russian aggression has been the centrepiece of UK foreign policy since Ernest Bevin was the foreign secretary. As recently as 2023, the Strategic Defence Review described Russia as the most acute threat to the UK’s security. And last September, the directors of MI6 and the CIA issued a rare joint statement warning that Russian intelligence was waging a campaign of sabotage across Europe and “[using] technology to spread lies and disinformation to drive wedges between us”.Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser, warned in 2010 that the UK would be in danger of sliding into irrelevance “if we have neither the strong transatlantic relationship or a strong role in Europe”.Powell urged the UK to stay close to US presidents, even when things get tough because they will remember it and reward the UK by letting its officials give counsel to the world’s only superpower. The necessary price for such influence was discretion and domestic accusations of being the US’s poodle.Fifteen years later that strategy is under intolerable strain.Brexit has happened and if Trump continues on its current path towards Russia, the UK faces the unenviable choice of distancing itself from its most important postwar partner – or renouncing all that it has ever believed about Russia. More

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      Stop criticising Trump and sign $500bn mineral deal, US official advises Kyiv

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      White House officials have told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Donald Trump and to sign a deal handing over half of the country’s mineral wealth to the US, saying a failure to do so would be unacceptable.The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should “tone down” his criticism of the US and take a “hard look” at the deal. It proposes giving Washington $500bn worth of natural resources, including oil and gas.Waltz said Kyiv was wrong to push back against the US president’s approach to peace talks with Moscow, given everything the US had done for Ukraine. He denied accusations the US had snubbed Ukraine and America’s European allies by excluding them from talks earlier this week with Russia. This was routine “shuttle diplomacy”, he said.“Some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv … and insults to president Trump were unacceptable,” Waltz later told reporters at the White House.“President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with president Zelenskyy, the fact that he hasn’t come to the table, that he hasn’t been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered.”On Wednesday, Trump called Zelenskyy “a dictator” who refused to hold elections and blamed Ukraine for the war. Zelenskyy, for his part, said Trump was living in a Kremlin “disinformation bubble” and that he wished Trump’s team were “more truthful”.The US’s rapid dumping of Zelenskyy as an ally was underlined when Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, cancelled a press conference in Kyiv. Journalists were summoned to the presidential palace to ask questions after his meeting with Zelenskyy but were stood down.Later Zelenskyy said he had a “good discussion” with Kellogg. It covered the battlefield situation, how to return Ukrainian prisoners of war, and “effective security guarantees”. He said he was grateful to the US for its assistance and bipartisan support, adding: “It’s important for us – and for the entire free world – that American strength is felt.”Kellogg is seen as the most pro-Ukrainian of Trump’s entourage. He did not take part in a meeting earlier this week between the US and Russia in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. One Ukrainian official said Kellogg had been sidelined from the peace talks, adding that Zelenskyy was in an “engaged” frame of mind and “highly motivated”.The envoy is due to leave Kyiv on Friday after a three-day trip. It was unclear if he would take up Zelenskyy’s proposal that they visit the frontline and talk to senior commanders, who are fending off a superior and advancing Russian force in the war-torn east.Ukrainians are sceptical any deal with Moscow will stick and believe Vladimir Putin’s original war goals – to conquer as much territory as possible – are unchanged. The US vice-president, JD Vance, said on Thursday that talks with Russia were making progress. “I really believe we are on the cusp of peace in Europe for the first time in three years,” he said, adding that Trump was determined to stop the war.Vance told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland: “I think with president Trump, what makes him such an effective negotiator, and I have seen this in private, is that he does not take anything off the table … Everything is on the table. And of course that makes the heads explode in America because they say: ‘Why are you talking to Russia?’”There were further signs that the Trump administration now considers Ukraine an adversary, and is working against it on a diplomatic level.According to Reuters, the US was refusing to co-sponsor a draft UN resolution to mark the third anniversary on Monday of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. The resolution condemns Russian aggression and reaffirms Ukraine’s sovereignty and pre-2014 international borders, before Russia annexed Crimea and started a covert military takeover of the eastern Donbas region.This is the first time since the war started that the US has failed to back the resolution. About 50 countries are likely to support it, including the UK and most EU governments, it is understood.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House was blocking a similar statement from the G7 group of countries blaming Russia for the conflict, the Financial Times reported. It said US envoys had objected to the phrase “Russian aggression” and had not signed off on a plan to allow Zelenskyy to address G7 leaders by video.Meanwhile, the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the White House could be willing to lift sanctions on Russia, or increase them, depending on Moscow’s readiness to negotiate. Bessent visited Kyiv this week, presenting Zelenskyy with the demand for minerals and saying it was “payback” for previous US military assistance.Bessent said he had received assurances Ukraine would sign the deal. On Wednesday, however, Zelenskyy said the US had provided $69.2bn in assistance under the Biden administration – far less than the figure the new White House is demanding. He said an agreement depended on the US giving security guarantees for a postwar settlement.European leaders have offered support to Ukraine, including Britain’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron. Zelenskyy said he spoke on Thursday to Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. “We deeply appreciate Denmark’s clear stance on a true peace – the peace we all strive for, that must be securely guaranteed,” he wrote on social media.The Kremlin has reacted with jubilation to Trump’s unprecedented attacks on Ukraine and to his false claim Zelenskyy has a 4% popularity rating. The actual figure is 57%, according to the latest opinion polls. “The rhetoric of Zelenskyy and many representatives of the Kyiv regime leaves much to be desired,” Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said.Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said he was stunned at how quickly Trump’s stance on Ukraine had evolved. “‘A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Medvedev posted on X.He added in English: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud. Trump is 200 percent right.” More

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      Kyiv’s White House wooing implodes as Zelenskyy tells the truth about Trump | Julian Borger

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      All the effort Kyiv had expended in wooing the White House, combining flattery with bribery and a share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, imploded in minutes when Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke the fundamental rule of the new global reality: he told the truth about Donald Trump.All America’s allies, the great majority of Republican leaders who have bowed to him, and a good number of his own cabinet, know full well that Trump is trapped in a disinformation bubble, but Zelenskyy said it out loud at a press conference on Wednesday.In this new world where the foreign policy of the most powerful country on Earth has been rapidly reorganised around the fragile ego of a sullen and resentful old man, you might as well launch missiles at America’s eastern seaboard as utter a few words of rebuke.Zelenskyy was aware of this. On Tuesday, he had complained that his country was being excluded from talks about its fate between the US and Russia in Riyadh. They were “about Ukraine but without Ukraine”, he said.It was a fair point. What happened in Riyadh was an upending of western policy towards Ukraine, but none of that matters any more. This is year zero as far as Trump, Elon Musk and their supporters are concerned. The Ukrainian president’s gripe triggered a meltdown in Mar-a-Lago, where Trump told stunned reporters that Ukraine had started the war, and that Zelenskyy had a 4% approval rating.It is hardly surprising Zelenskyy lost his cool. Part of the reason he has a 57% confidence rating in the latest poll (13% above Trump’s own current standing) is because he has led his country through years of war with his heart vividly on his sleeve. Having been subjected to eight years of Russian aggression, followed by an entirely unprovoked full-on invasion which has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, and then to be told on the world stage that: “You should have never started it”, would be too much for most people.When slighted and sprayed with Trumpian falsehoods, other world leaders, with much less at stake, have resorted to a “smile-and-wave” default strategy, deflecting direct questions and changing the subject to some aspect of relations with Washington that is still functioning normally.Zelenskyy did not do this on Wednesday. Instead, he said out loud the bit that European leaders keep quiet. Trump, he observed, is “trapped in this disinformation bubble”. He was stating the obvious, but not even Zelenskyy could have known how fetid the air inside Trump’s bubble has become. Now we know.Trump’s tirade on his own app, Truth Social, is a distillation of the greatest hits of Russian disinformation from the past three years. He said Zelenskyy was “A Dictator without Elections” (something Trump has never said about Putin) who had hoodwinked the Biden administration into a $350bn war of choice, which only “TRUMP” could fix. The president’s repeated references to himself in the third person and all caps erased any lingering doubts about the single unifying compulsion now driving Trump foreign policy.The child who guilelessly points out the emperor has no clothes is the hero of the folk tale, but the emperor in Hans Christian Andersen’s story did not have a vast nuclear arsenal and the world’s mightiest army. Telling the truth is cathartic, but getting into a personal spat with Trump amid the dizzying euphoria of his restoration to the Oval Office risks serious damage to your country.That begs the question: what will work with Trump now? He admires autocrats and is eager to please them, but that is not really an option for the world’s remaining democracies. The hope in western European capitals, based on patchy evidence from the first Trump term, is that if they can make discreet common cause with the calmer heads around Trump he can be gently steered away from his more extreme whims.In that regard, they have some faith in Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. They may be able to talk the president out of his stated plan to own and ethnically cleanse Gaza, if only because it would be so disastrous for the US. But from the evidence of Trump’s rants, the poison about Ukraine has seeped deeper into the president’s nervous system.Zelenskyy’s best option might be to persevere with the offer of an American share in Ukraine’s rare earths. Trump’s first offer was to take half of the spoils with no security guarantees in return. But the absurd opening offer is likely to be just part of his “art of the deal” brinkmanship. Further negotiations may distract him, like a dog with a bone, from his profound pro-Putin impulses.It is a long shot. It is also an act of faith to believe this Trump episode in American history will eventually pass. But we are not even one month into his chaotic second term. For a country like Ukraine, facing an existential threat, it is going to be a very long four years. More

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      The Guardian view on Trump’s diplomacy: when the US knows the price and ignores values | Editorial

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      The Trump administration did not take red lines on Ukraine to its talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday: it cares about the bottom line. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, underscored that when he said the two sides would create a team, not only to support Ukraine peace talks but also to explore the “incredible opportunities” to partner with Moscow geopolitically “and, frankly, economically” that might result.Kyiv and other European capitals are still reeling at the full extent of Donald Trump’s cynicism when it comes to world affairs, and callous disregard for the people caught up in them. But it should be no surprise that business dealings were high on the agenda. Vladimir Putin would dearly love to end his country’s economic isolation. Russia is making the case that American energy firms and others could profit handsomely by doing business with it again.For Mr Trump, his two key interests – money and power – are not only interrelated but fungible, just as US goals and his personal interests often appear indistinguishable to him. (This is a man who launched his own cryptocurrency token days before returning to the White House, and as he sought to ease regulation of the industry).When he talks of the future of Ukraine or Gaza, he speaks not of human rights and security, lives and homes, but of laying US hands on $500bn of minerals and a “big real-estate site” respectively. He believes in cutting deals, not making peace. At the heart of his foreign policy team is Steve Witkoff, not a diplomat but a billionaire real-estate developer and golf buddy. Mr Witkoff was first appointed as Middle East envoy and then dispatched to negotiate with Moscow. The head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, was also in Riyadh – while Ukraine and European allies have been denied a seat.Mr Trump’s merging of wealth and strength were obvious even before he took office the first time. He suggested he could use Taiwan as leverage with China on issues including trade. John Bolton, who became his national security adviser, later said (though Mr Trump denied it) that the president pleaded with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to ensure he would win the next election, “stress[ing] the importance of … increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome”.Mr Trump’s Middle East policy is not only pleasing to his evangelical Christian supporters. His repugnant proposal to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, allowing the construction of an American-owned “Riviera”, is shocking but in many ways builds upon ideas long held by businessman friends as well as Israeli settlers. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a former real-estate developer charged with overseeing Middle East policy in Mr Trump’s first term, suggested last year that Gaza’s “waterfront property” could be “very valuable”. (Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, incidentally, became a major investor in Mr Kushner’s private equity firm after he left the administration.)Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to capitalise on Mr Trump’s economic transactionalism by offering access to Ukraine’s resources, notably minerals, in exchange for security. He got Mr Trump’s attention – but the terms of the resulting US demand make it look less like diplomacy than extortion. The US president prices up everything and knows the value of nothing. Others must now endeavour to show him that his plans will not come as cheaply as he believes.

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      As the US retreats, Europe must look out for itself – so is Macron’s nuclear offer the answer? | Simon Tisdall

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      The startling contempt for Europe’s intensifying security concerns displayed by Donald Trump and his henchmen has brought an old, controversial question back to the fore: should Britain and France pool their nuclear weapons capabilities and create a Europe-wide defensive nuclear shield to deter Vladimir Putin’s Russia, if the US reduces or withdraws its support?Trump has not so far explicitly threatened to cut US nuclear forces based in Europe. But speaking last week, the president said he wanted to halve the US’s defence spending, especially on nuclear weapons. Trump often denigrates Nato, keystone of European security. Last year, he encouraged Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to member states that, in his view, spend too little on defence.Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, warned Nato defence ministers in Brussels that defending Europe was no longer a strategic priority, and raised the prospect of US troop withdrawals. In an insulting speech at the Munich security conference, he minimised the threat posed by Russia. Americans would not be taken for “suckers” by Europeans, he said.These unprecedented assaults on US-Europe ties have raised real fears of a damaging, possibly permanent rupture with Washington. It is against this volatile background that France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has called an emergency summit in Paris of European leaders, including Keir Starmer. The meeting is expected to focus on Ukraine, its future defence, and Europe’s anticipated exclusion from US “peace talks” with Russia due later this week.Yet an even bigger issue overshadows the summit: how to better organise Europe’s collective defences in the context of reduced, unreliable or nonexistent US support and overt nuclear threats from an emboldened Russia. Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, has predicted that Putin could attack at least one Nato country within the next five years. Frontline Poland and the Baltic republics voice similar fears.Nato’s chief, Mark Rutte, has urged all 32 member states to expand defence spending. Many, including Britain, appear poised to do so. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, dismayed by what looks to many in Kyiv like US betrayal, told the Munich conference it was time to create an “army of Europe”. That reflects ideas long promoted by Macron, a passionate champion of more integrated, expanded, self-reliant European defence – and reduced US dependence.It is Macron who is leading the debate about a pan-European nuclear shield. The French leader gave new prominence to the idea in a 2020 speech at the École de Guerre in Paris, when he suggested a “strategic dialogue with our European partners … on the role played by France’s nuclear deterrence in our collective security”. Macron repeated the offer in 2022 and again last year.France is not proposing to place its independent deterrent, the force de frappe, which comprises about 290 warheads and operates separately from Nato, under the control of other countries – or the EU. What Macron is saying, like François Hollande and other French leaders before him, is that there exists a “European dimension” to France’s nuclear defence planning. If, for example, Berlin were threatened with nuclear destruction, that would be seen as a threat to Paris, too.“French leaders have three main worries,” an analysis published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) stated. “Firstly, there is a high risk that Trump could withdraw from Nato, or at least significantly reduce US conventional forces in Europe … Secondly, he may also reduce the number of US nuclear weapons currently deployed in Europe, though not much evidence currently supports that prospect.“Thirdly, and most importantly, a US president who loathes or dismisses many European countries is unlikely to risk American lives for Europe.” This latter argument has circulated in France since the days of Gen Charles de Gaulle, who created the force de frappe: namely that, if push came to shove, the US would go nuclear to save Boston but not Boulogne, Bratislava or Bognor Regis.Macron’s proposal raises numerous, complex questions. Among them, who could order the actual use of “Europeanised” nuclear weapons? Who would pay for such a force, especially if necessarily modernised and enlarged? Would such a move make matters worse, by accelerating US disengagement?The view from Germany, a necessary partner in any such project, is mixed. The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and anti-nuclear parties such as the Greens strongly dislike the idea (as do French leftwing and far-right parties). But Friedrich Merz, Scholz’s likely successor, is reportedly interested. Manfred Weber, a leading German conservative, told the Guardian last year that doubts about Trump meant it was time to take up Macron’s offer. Weber also urged the opening of a “new chapter” with London.The need for British involvement has also been raised by Christian Lindner, another senior German politician. “The question is: under what political and financial conditions would Paris and London be prepared to maintain or expand their own strategic capabilities for collective security?” Lindner wrote last year. “When it comes to peace and freedom in Europe, we must not shy away from these difficult questions.”The IISS study raised similar issues. “As the only other nuclear power in Europe, Britain is a natural partner for France in any exploration of how to strengthen European deterrence … [They] regularly exchange data about nuclear safety and security … The British and French nuclear arsenals combined come to around 520 warheads, numerically equivalent to China’s current deterrent force. This alone could send a stronger message to Russia.”Development of a joint UK-French nuclear umbrella, under the auspices of the European Nato allies and sidelining the US, is politically explosive for Starmer. It would raise questions about sovereign control, not least from the Eurosceptic right. It could be seen by many in Labour as fuelling nuclear weapons proliferation, bringing nuclear war closer. Putin, who has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, would view it as a provocation. So, too, for different reasons, might Trump. It would be a good test of how independent of the US the UK deterrent really is.But as the defence analyst Joseph de Weck argues in Internationale Politik Quarterly, times are changing fast. Governments urgently need solutions to Europe’s rapidly deepening security crisis. “Europeans may simply not have the time for gradualism in security integration any more,” De Weck wrote. Extending French and UK nuclear guarantees to the whole of Europe, including Ukraine, is an idea whose time has come.

      Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator More

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      Zelenskyy says Russia will ‘wage war on Nato’ if US support for Ukraine wanes

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      Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday predicted Russia would “wage war against Nato” if the US stepped back from its support of Ukraine – and that he had seen intelligence suggesting that the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, was building up troops for a possible military invasion of another European country.The Ukrainian president made the claim on the NBC show Meet the Press in a wide-ranging interview ahead of an emergency summit of European leaders in Paris to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine – and peace talks between US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia.“It can happen in summer, maybe in the beginning, maybe in the end of summer. I do not know when he prepares it,” Zelenskyy said. “But it will happen. And at that moment, knowing that he did not succeed in occupying us, we do not know where he will go.”Zelenskyy added that he believed Putin’s next targets could be Poland and Lithuania – which were occupied during the second world war by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – “because we believe that [Russian president] Putin will wage war against Nato”, the international military alliance formally known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Zelenskyy said he had viewed documents indicating that Putin was “preparing to train 150,000 people” in Belarus, a staunch ally of Moscow – and that he had shared that intelligence with allies.The Russian leader, Zelenskyy said, wanted to “show it for the world that it is just training” and would claim “that these are exercises that are always ongoing” in Belarus.“But it’s not truth,” Zelenskyy said. “From such point, he began the occupation [of Ukraine] three years ago. Full-scale war he began from some symbolic trainings. The missiles the first night flew from Belarus, and the invasion came from Belarus.”Zelenskyy insisted he still had trust in Donald Trump’s ability to negotiate with Russia after beginning his second US presidency in January. But Zelenskyy said he would not accept any peace agreement that excluded Ukraine from the negotiating table. He also said that some of the “messages” coming from the US in recent days, such as Vice-President JD Vance’s speech in Munich denouncing European leaders, and Trump’s comment that Ukraine “may be Russian some day”, were “a disappointment”.In a recent exclusive interview with the Guardian, Zelenskyy stressed that Europe could not guarantee Ukraine’s security without US help – and he returned to the theme in his Meet the Press interview.“There is no leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us about us,” he said, speaking in English.“Of course, the US can have a lot of decisions, economical partnerships, etc. We’re not happy with it, but they can have [them] with [the] Russians. But not about this war without us.“There are messages, which, you know, make disappointment for a lot of leaders of Europe, because they also feel sometimes that they are out of decisions.“They have to be in unity with the US otherwise, not only [can the] US lose Europe as a strategic partner, Europe also can lose the US.”His comments mirrored the alarm of European leaders at the US’s backpedalling over support for Ukraine, and Trump’s cozying up to Putin in a recent phone call, which many have portrayed as a capitulation.In advance of Vance’s divisive speech at the Munich Security Conference, European powers including Britain, France and Germany said there could be no lasting peace in Ukraine without their participation in peace talks.After it, some, including the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, took Vance to task for his comments questioning the future of the decades-old US-European alliance. Scholz also accused the US of “unacceptable interference” in its upcoming election after praise from Vance and the billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s “special government employee”, for the far-right nationalist party AfD.Zelenskyy, who in Munich on Saturday called for the formation of an armed forces of Europe, told NBC that any weakening of US support for Europe or Nato would open the door to Putin’s plans for a territory grab.“What is he waiting for? For a weakening of Nato by, for instance, policy of the US, that the US will think to take its military from Europe,” he said.“Yes, Putin thinks of that. But I will believe that the US will not take its forces, its contingents from Europe, because that will severely weaken Nato and the European continent. Putin definitely counts on that, and the fact that we receive information that he will think of the invasion against former Soviet republics.“The risk that Russia will occupy Europe is 100%, not all Europe, they will begin [with] those countries who are our friends, small countries who’ve been in the USSR, in the Soviet Union. Forgive me, but today these are Nato countries.” More