Even Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s extraordinary communication skills were stretched as he rushed to congratulate Donald Trump on the victory that Kyiv had been dreading. The Ukrainian president wrote that Mr Trump’s commitment to “peace through strength” was exactly the principle that could bring a just peace closer. Vladimir Putin’s riposte came almost immediately, via a massive drone attack on the capital, and the Kremlin’s call on the west to stop arming Ukraine to save its people.
For Joe Biden, supporting Ukraine was about defending the post-second-world-war order. It was a relatively cost-effective way for the US to degrade the capabilities of a key adversary with no risk to its own personnel. But Mr Trump is an isolationist who has a strikingly close relationship with the Russian president – and who, according to a former aide, made it very clear that he believed Ukraine “must be part of Russia”. Mr Trump said during his campaign that he could end the war “in a day” and blamed Mr Zelenskyy for the conflict.
