Trump, Zelenskyy and Europe: Ukraine Sold Out and Abandoned
The U.S. president is siding ever more openly with the Kremlin leader. The EU is pinning its hopes on the midterms, while Ukraine is coming under heavy bombardment.
It is disgraceful to watch U.S. President Donald Trump sell out Ukraine while the Europeans stand helplessly by, even though they could have done far more long ago. What on earth are they waiting for? After meeting with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser said Russia was ready for U.S.-mediated talks with Ukraine, but those discussions would not begin until next month and would be limited to discussing security guarantees for both sides that would apply after a peace agreement.
Will Trump’s patience last that long? The half-life of his statements has been getting shorter and shorter lately. Putin wants to persuade Trump to negotiate a ceasefire at a three-way meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping — without Ukraine present. As Trump betrays his allies and sides ever more openly with Putin, both the Kremlin and Europe are playing for time: The European Union is waiting for the outcome of the U.S. midterm elections in early November and is keeping quiet for now. Putin wants to wait until April, in the hope that the far-right Marine Le Pen will win the French election and that EU unity on aid to Ukraine will then soon unravel.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is staggering toward a catastrophic winter, hit by hundreds of Russian missiles and drones every day. So far, Europe has answered Trump’s shameful betrayal with nothing but hypocrisy. It is providing money and weapons, certainly. But it is withholding the military equipment Ukraine really needs to strike Putin’s marauding troops deep behind the lines.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, EU countries have paid around 239 billion euro more for fossil fuels, filling Moscow’s war chest, than they have provided in aid to Ukraine. The 210 billion euro in Russian central bank funds frozen at the Belgian payment services provider Euroclear could have been confiscated and made available to Ukraine long ago. For now, Kyiv’s exporters cannot earn billions themselves — and they have not been able to do so ever since Moscow blocked the Black Sea to freighters carrying Ukrainian grain.
Poland, Romania and Slovakia are letting railcars full of wheat and corn rot at the EU’s external border. As long as that continues, Europe’s warm words for Zelenskyy are nothing but lies. And in the end, we will have to pay many times more to keep ourselves safe from Russia.
It is disgraceful to watch U.S. President Donald Trump sell out Ukraine while the Europeans stand helplessly by, even though they could have done far more long ago. What on earth are they waiting for? After meeting with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser said Russia was ready for U.S.-mediated talks with Ukraine, but those discussions would not begin until next month and would be limited to discussing security guarantees for both sides that would apply after a peace agreement.
Will Trump’s patience last that long? The half-life of his statements has been getting shorter and shorter lately. Putin wants to persuade Trump to negotiate a ceasefire at a three-way meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping — without Ukraine present. As Trump betrays his allies and sides ever more openly with Putin, both the Kremlin and Europe are playing for time: The European Union is waiting for the outcome of the U.S. midterm elections in early November and is keeping quiet for now. Putin wants to wait until April, in the hope that the far-right Marine Le Pen will win the French election and that EU unity on aid to Ukraine will then soon unravel.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is staggering toward a catastrophic winter, hit by hundreds of Russian missiles and drones every day. So far, Europe has answered Trump’s shameful betrayal with nothing but hypocrisy. It is providing money and weapons, certainly. But it is withholding the military equipment Ukraine really needs to strike Putin’s marauding troops deep behind the lines.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, EU countries have paid around 239 billion euro more for fossil fuels, filling Moscow’s war chest, than they have provided in aid to Ukraine. The 210 billion euro in Russian central bank funds frozen at the Belgian payment services provider Euroclear could have been confiscated and made available to Ukraine long ago. For now, Kyiv’s exporters cannot earn billions themselves — and they have not been able to do so ever since Moscow blocked the Black Sea to freighters carrying Ukrainian grain.
Poland, Romania and Slovakia are letting railcars full of wheat and corn rot at the EU’s external border. As long as that continues, Europe’s warm words for Zelenskyy are nothing but lies. And in the end, we will have to pay many times more to keep ourselves safe from Russia.
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