POLITICO: Europe and Ukraine are learning how little the U.S. cares, as the new president aligns himself with their greatest enemy.
LONDON — The thing about a war is it forces people to pick a side. And Donald Trump, it seems to many in Europe, is siding with Vladimir Putin.
Seven days of presidential interventions in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have made real the nightmares of Ukrainians and many of their allies, upending the transatlantic relationship that has underpinned European security since 1945.
Europe’s politicians are beginning to grasp how profoundly their world has changed: They must now deal with an America that is at best skeptical and at worst hostile to the old world they represent.
If there were any lingering doubts about the extent of Trump’s willingness to make enemies in Europe, he ended it Tuesday night when he blamed Ukraine for having “started” the war with Russia. Such blatant defiance of the fact of Putin’s unprovoked invasion three years ago shocked even America’s most loyal friends in the region.
“Jesus,” one British government official said privately in response to the president’s outburst.
“We now have an alliance between a Russian president who wants to destroy Europe and an American president who also wants to destroy Europe,” another European diplomat observed in recent days, declining to be identified discussing sensitive matters. “The transatlantic alliance is over.”
After almost three years of staunch support for Ukraine’s resistance under Joe Biden’s presidency, the new man in the White House is spouting Putin’s lines. In a fresh diatribe on Wednesday, he branded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy a “dictator” for not calling elections, and admitted he didn’t care much about the outcome of the war.
“This War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,” Trump wrote on social media. “We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.” » | Tim Ross and Jacopo Barigazzi | Wednesday, February 19, 2025
