U.S. president Donald Trump invited Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenski to talk to the White House. J.D. Vance, already known for being eager to be Europeans, besides participated in the interview on Friday. If the next politicians call this spectacle “hard politics”, or “real politics”, blame Zelenski and convince that Trump has good intentions, then I think they effort to charm reality – 2 sides are needed to talk to each other.
What We saw it in the oval office. It was just a bender where the aggressive Vance and Trump pushed Zelenski into the corner, utilizing accusations, slanders and manipulations, interrupting, undermining the right to talk and even clinging to the Ukrainian President's outfit.
Vance accused Zelenski of organising “propagand trips” and “no gratitude”. Trum about a deficiency of knowing for Putin, who “had to face the witch hunt.” They both gave false data and numbers, and erstwhile Zelenski objected, he heard that “he is not in that position” and “no cards” to play, and that “he already talks so much.”
It was an attack. The president of a country that has been attacked for 3 years without pardon, whose cities and infrastructure are destroyed, civilians killed, who have incomparably little resources than the aggressor, but shows immense heroism and determination, has travelled a long and complex journey to sign an agreement to extract the natural materials of uncommon earths. The proposed agreement did not contain safety guarantees on which Ukraine depends and would be very beneficial to the US.
Zelenski not only was not accepted in the White home as an ally, but was insulted and ignored, shown as an annoying petent who does not know how to do business. It's hard to defy the impression that it was a setup, not that politicians were emotional.
Remember how they were late admitted to the United States Emmanuel MacronKeir Starmer and Andrzej Duda. Macron with peace, diplomacy and culture, Starmer had to endure the suffocation and the unceremonious “enough” which interrupted his statement. And yet Starmer brought a cordial letter from King Charles III, to whom Donald Trump could boast before the media. Andrzej Duda had to endure long expectation. Humiliation was reinforced by tv Republic (this message surely does not work in favour of the Polish state), for an hr showing trampling paths in the carpet of the president of Poland.
Zelenski had 2 opponents in the White home on Friday, 1 of whom is simply a narcissist hungering for praise, memorable and petty, who does not realize diplomacy another than as a game of humiliation, and the another a clever and cynical manipulative manipulative who can perfectly play narcissism.
For no of them arguments concerning morality, good and evil, life and death were relevant. For 2 weeks now, they have said that Zelenski has no legitimacy to regulation that he is simply a dictator, they have presented him with a dwindling contract for the exploitation of Ukraine's goods, they do not tie the word “Putin” to the word “war”.
At the last minute Trump wanted to cancel the meeting, but he let himself convince Macro and the gathering happened. So the gathering was uneven before it even started. It was expected to item inequality, which could have been a starting point either to show favour or to humiliate. The another thing happened. And the blame for the failed peace talks was dropped on Ukraine, although Russia was the 1 who launched missiles on Kiev erstwhile American politicians were there and Chernobyl attacked at the beginning of the Munich conference.
Turns out Vance and Trump like to deal with a stronger one, and for the stronger 1 they have 1 who puts himself above the law, which is not bound by obligations and rules. This individual is Putin, “the large king, the ruler of the half world”, a strong man, “as God is strong as Satan is malicious” quoting Adam Mickiewicz.
The 1994 Budapest Memorandum (signed by Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom) guaranteed not only the inviolability of borders, but protected against colonial pressures – the US, Russia and the United Kingdom promised not to effort economically to force Ukraine to submit to their interests and benefits.
In 2014, it turned out to be unbinding for Putin due to the fact that he did not like the elected Ukrainian president. With Petr Poroshenko Ukraine was to be a different country for Putin than the 1 afraid by the memorandum. In 2025, it turns out that it is not binding on the US due to the fact that it was not Donald Trump who signed them.
US aid so no longer results from the 1994 warrant data, but turns out to be a loan, a business, due to the fact that that is Trump's way of thinking. designation of the memorandum would besides make it hard to operate Ukraine's deposits. But not just that.
If Donald Trump's U.S. would now stand behind the country being attacked, defending the integrity of the borders established after planet War II, they would undermine their own claims against Canada, Greenland or Panama. Almost in the blink of an eye the U.S. with a stableness guarantor turned into a country that wants to bring about a new, alternatively than a new, but reheated logic of authoritarianism, from which the West, after hundreds of years of devastating wars, departed, consciously choosing democracy. However, the condition of democracy is equality and the law, and these are not the conditions of capitalism, which allows for the fattening of oligarchs, due to the fact that for them democracy is besides tight.
Europe has proved naive to a tyrant from the East. Now he's dealing with two. Democracy is no longer a default improvement path, a pass to an elite club. Will Europe defend it and itself, can it be played and plunge back into endless sovereign wars?
