Three notes for the future on Trump's humiliation of Zelensky
Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's adviser who acts as a bridge to the White House, has described Donald Trump's booing of Volodymyr Zelensky as "historic". One has to imagine the men in the Kremlin – including President Putin – glued to the television, enjoying as much as anyone the public humiliation that the men in the White House have inflicted on the Ukrainian president. Russia is the big winner, once again, of the moves in Washington. This last phrase, which has become a trend since Trump returned to the White House, is and will be catastrophic for the interests of Kiev and Europe in this war.
Dmitriev is right: Trump's booing of Zelensky will be historic. It is quite likely that the bullying Trump and Vance's speech to the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office is the staging of Washington's final abandonment of Kiev. It is also quite likely that the US government –who has been trying to provoke Zelensky for days with incendiary statements– had previously planned that the meeting with Zelensky should end in this way. At least now Trump has an alibi to fulfill what he has long proclaimed: ending the war in favor of the interests of his "friend" Putin and punishing the future of Ukraine. "[Zelensky] has disrespected the United States and its precious Oval Office," said the Republican president minutes after everything blew up. In the eyes of Trump, and of a part of American society, Zelensky may now be the enemy.
It is also interesting to highlight Zelensky's role during the televised ambush. At the beginning of the meeting, the Kiev president tried to respond bravely to the attacks and lies of Trump and Vance –an attitude, by the way, celebrated on Ukrainian social networks. But in the final seconds of the meeting, when the blood had already flowed into the river, the Ukrainian leader simply remained silent. In the end, his face was a poem. The gravity of the moment was overwhelming and must have announced a dark reality: the war in Ukraine has today reached a momentous turning point and Putin has the best cards on the table since he ordered the invasion.
All of Europe, absent from this table, will resent it. All of Europe must find a way to react already in the first month (only one!) of Trump's mandate.
