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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Simon Tisdall

In their inhumanity, conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine offer a shared, brutal vision of the future of war

A woman hugs a crying child as they mourn a relative who lost his life following the Israeli attacks on Nuseirat Refugee Camp on 23 September 2024.
A woman hugs a crying child as they mourn a relative who lost his life following the Israeli attacks on Nuseirat Refugee Camp on 23 September 2024. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

It’s a golden rule of politics that national leaders do not interfere in other countries’ elections. Tell that to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who jumped into the middle of America’s presidential campaign last week with both feet, wearing size 10 combat boots. The resulting, resounding thud could be heard as far away as Kyiv (which was perhaps the point).

Visiting an ammunition factory in pivotal Pennsylvania, Ukraine’s war-weary president told Republican nominee Donald Trump that, when it came to his appeaser’s policy of cutting off arms supplies and accepting peace on Vladimir Putin’s terms, he was talking out of his posterior. And Trump’s oddball running mate, JD Vance, was just plain “dangerous”, he said.

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