Putin still holds all the cards in Ukraine, with no reasons to fold

The Ukrainians surely felt a surge of alarm on hearing Trump's latest pronouncement, that peace will only come when he and Putin meet face-to-face

While we anguish over Donald Trump’s wars on trade, judges, migrants, aid recipients and universities, spare a thought for Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Every morning when Ukraine’s president wakes up, he must ask himself whether this is the day the US will again cut off its lifeline flow of arms to his country.

 

This week, Zelenskiy expressed his willingness to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Istanbul, but the Russian declined, sending only a delegation of Kremlin stooges. Trump then canceled. (The Friday meeting was their first direct talks in more than three years.) The Ukrainian leader, and the world, are left utterly uncertain whether the US president’s next move will be to toughen sanctions on obdurate Russia or to pull the plug on hapless Ukraine.