After last Friday’s disgraceful roughhouse treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, delivered a pithy summary of first principles regarding the first full-scale war between nation states on European soil since 1945. “There is an aggressor: Russia,” Mr Macron observed on social media, “There is a victim: Ukraine. We were right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago – and to keep doing so.”
That this needed saying underlines the extent to which Donald Trump’s administration is laying waste decades-old assumptions governing transatlantic relations. Appearing to prioritise a reset of the US relationship with Russia over international law and the unity of the west, Mr Trump is pursuing a peace deal with Moscow on Vladimir Putin’s terms. At the same time he is seeking to plunder Ukraine’s natural resources, while demanding obeisance and gratitude from Kyiv in return.
