Back to square one. Once again, Donald Trump's misguided diplomacy with Vladimir Putin has left Kyiv and its European allies backed up against the wall, being forced to work with their out-of-control, yet indispensable American patron, all while Russia, after having devastated Ukraine for nearly four years, has stepped up its hybrid war against Europe.
Two months after the Alaska summit, recent events have seemed eerily like déjà vu. It started with a series of intense meetings, held in Washington from October 14 to 16 and led by a high-level Ukrainian delegation headed by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and President Volodymyr Zelensky's right-hand man, Andriy Yermak. They met with key players in the capital of the United States: senators, defense industry leaders and figures in President Trump's entourage.
The talks were "encouraging," Sergiy Kyslytsya, first deputy foreign minister, told us upon returning to Kyiv. The mood was constructive, with satisfaction at Trump's apparent shift on the Ukrainian issue. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke of a forthcoming trip to Kyiv. A Trump-Zelensky meeting, which these consultations were meant to prepare, was scheduled for Friday, October 17, and the prospects looked promising.
Double humiliation
The first damper came on Thursday: Ukrainians learned that the meeting would be preceded by a phone call between Trump and Putin. During their two-hour conversation, the two presidents discussed "property" – meaning, in Trump's parlance, territory. "He's [Putin] won certain property, he's going to take something," Trump later said on Fox News. "We're the only nation that goes in and wins a war and then leaves. You know, like we did under President Bush in the Middle East. (...) You know, it doesn't make sense."
Yet, above all, Trump announced a new summit with Putin, to be held in Budapest "within two weeks" and hosted by his friend Viktor Orban, the pro-Putin rebel within the European Union. This was a double humiliation for Kyiv and the Europeans. Marco Rubio, the US's top diplomat, was tasked with preparing the meeting together with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
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