When Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington two years ago, he was hailed as a hero. It was December 2022, just days before Christmas, when the Ukrainian president made a quick visit to the United States. He thanked President Joe Biden for America’s unwavering support in his country’s war against Russia. Later, after addressing a joint session of Congress, he handed speaker Nancy Pelosi a blue-and-gold Ukrainian battle flag and, in return, received a framed American flag that had flown over the Capitol in his honour. The visit underscored the deep alliance between Washington and Kyiv, forged in the fire of Russia’s brutal invasion. It was a moment of democratic solidarity that felt unshakeable.
Fast forward to last month, and that unity lay in tatters. Zelensky’s highly anticipated meeting with President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance at the White House was meant to cement a new agreement on Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, an asset vital to both nations’ economic interests. Instead, the talks held on February 28 unravelled into an unprecedented diplomatic debacle, with Trump and Vance accusing Zelensky of ingratitude and the Ukrainian leader pushing back defiantly. Unlike foreign leaders who navigate Trump’s temperament with flattery, Zelensky challenged the administration’s apparent reluctance to confront Russian aggression. A visibly enraged Trump scrapped a planned joint press conference and sent Zelensky back without even inviting him to the lunch arranged in his honour.
It marks a pivotal moment in global politics, signalling not just a dramatic shift in US foreign policy but a serious challenge to the post-World War II liberal order. Washington appears to be embracing a new form of great-power dealmaking, one that could leave Ukraine, and much of Europe, perilously exposed.
Russia wasted no time in capitalising on the fiasco. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and close Putin ally, mocked Zelensky as an “arrogant fool” and a “cocaine clown”, echoing longstanding Kremlin propaganda. Moscow hailed the split between Kyiv and Washington as a geopolitical triumph. Trump’s subsequent remarks only fuelled speculation of a pivot towards Russia. Speaking to reporters, he praised Putin, drawing parallels between their shared grievances over the so-called “Russia hoax” about election interference that had dogged his first term. Since returning to office, Trump has pursued a foreign policy sharply at odds with America’s post-war commitments, prioritising transactional diplomacy over democratic alliances. Ukraine, once a bipartisan cause in the US, now finds itself on the periphery of American interests, with Trump hinting that its fate might ultimately lie with Russia.
This shift extends far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Trump’s approach signals a potential dismantling of NATO’s unified stance on Russia and a broader reconfiguration of global power dynamics. Instead of the G7 or G20, he seems to prefer a G3, echoing the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of 1945, when the world was carved up into spheres of influence—a triumvirate of Washington, Moscow and Beijing dominating the stage. Even within Trump’s administration, former hawks have realigned. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, once an outspoken Putin critic, now champions a US-Russia-China realignment, mirroring Trump’s strategic outlook. “The US president’s talking points on Ukraine and his Yalta-inspired vision of dividing the world into spheres of influence come straight from the Kremlin,” writes Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe. “At best, the transatlantic relationship is hanging by a thread. Whether that thread holds will depend on whether Trump can be persuaded to maintain NATO’s military backstop for a European-led mission in Ukraine.”
Behind the scenes, high-level negotiations hint at a larger game. Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s former defence minister and current security council head, recently travelled to Beijing for an unscheduled meeting with President Xi Jinping, in what was considered an unusual break in protocol. Shoigu was visiting Indonesia and Malaysia when he was diverted to Beijing, following a phone call between Xi and Putin. Seasoned observers believe Putin wanted to apprise Xi of the progress in the US-Russia rapprochement. Reports also suggest American investors are being courted for a revival of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Europe, a project stalled after the 2022 invasion. All of this has come after the US-Russia talks held recently in Saudi Arabia, with another round expected soon, possibly in a Gulf state. European leaders watch with growing alarm, bracing for the fallout of an American tilt towards Moscow.
Stephen Bryen, a former Senate foreign relations committee staff director, argues that the Trump administration is already negotiating with Russia over Ukraine’s future. “This is a radical shift in US policy,” he wrote on Substack. “It is clear that the administration is moving towards a new security arrangement, one that favours engagement with Moscow over confrontation.” With a potential Trump-Putin summit looming and speculation rife about a deal to end the Ukraine war, the stakes are immense.
Much of the US acquiesced to Trump’s pro-Russia stance without any visible protest. A token display of defiance came during the Oscars from host Conan O’Brien. Tying the runaway winner Anora—a movie about a sex worker marrying a Russian oligarch’s son—to Trump’s Putin ties, O’Brien quipped, “Anora’s killing it with two wins. Guess Americans love seeing someone stand up to a powerful Russian.” After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd erupted in applause.
Comrades in arms: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on September 16, 2022 | AFP
Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, European leaders were swift to condemn Trump and Vance’s treatment of Zelensky. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, delivered the sharpest rebuke: “The free world needs new leadership, and Europe must step up.” French President Emmanuel Macron denounced Trump’s apparent moral equivalence between Ukraine and Russia as “a dangerous falsehood”, while leaders from Germany, Poland, Sweden and beyond voiced support for Zelensky.
Britain, too, stepped up its support for Zelensky. A day after his White House humiliation, Zelensky was received by Prime Minister Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street, with a promise of Britain’s unwavering support “for as long as it takes”. Later, King Charles hosted him at the Sandringham Estate, reinforcing the UK’s commitment. Zelensky was in London to attend a European conference on March 2 to find a way forward for Ukraine. Another meeting will take place in Brussels on March 6. These gestures underscore Europe’s intent to remain a key player in ensuring the continent’s and Ukraine’s security, even as the US wavers.
Unfortunately, time may not be on Europe’s side, as Trump announced on March 3 a pause in American military aid to Ukraine until he was convinced that Zelensky was serious about peace. Without US aid—estimated at $114 billion since the war began—Ukraine’s resistance could falter. Europe’s $132 billion in assistance lacks the advanced weapons and intelligence that only Washington provides, and a sudden American withdrawal could halt Kyiv’s war effort.
Since 1945, the transatlantic relationship has been the keystone of western unity, grounded in shared democratic values and collective security. Trump’s administration, however, signals a stark departure, embracing a worldview closer to that of Putin and Xi, where might is always right. This ideological rift surpasses even Cold War tensions when Europe feared American isolationism but never its alignment with adversarial powers. Now, as Trump steers US policy towards deal-making, European leaders face an uncomfortable reality: the America they relied on may no longer be an ally.
This fracture was ideologically crystallised at the Munich Security Conference in February, where Vance delivered a speech many saw as a calculated provocation. Traditionally a forum for reaffirming western resolve, the conference became a stage for Vance to attack Europe’s “entrenched elite”, accusing them of suppressing populist voices and ignoring domestic discontent. His meeting with the leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party deepened the sense that Washington was encouraging Europe’s populist movements, a tactic from the Russian and Chinese playbook. “If you fear your own voters,” Vance warned, “America can do nothing for you.” For European leaders, this was a signal that Trump’s White House views traditional allies as competitors, even obstacles, to its new vision.
The ramifications for NATO are profound. If Trump prioritises Russia over European security, potentially refusing to back a Europe-led mission in Ukraine, the alliance’s foundation could crumble. Poland and the Baltic states, long wary of Russian aggression, are already boosting military spending to nearly 5 per cent of their GDP, proportionally more than the US. Yet, Trump’s strategy seems designed to fracture Europe from within, amplifying far-right voices to weaken unity.
Vance’s rapid rise from freshman senator to vice president reflects the Republican Party’s populist shift. His scepticism of US aid to Ukraine has gained traction, reinforcing the view that America should refocus domestically. At Munich, he argued that Europe’s dependence on American security had become a liability, exacerbated by the war. His vision is not necessarily NATO’s dismantlement, but its redefinition, forcing Europe to bear more of its own defence burden. Writing for Responsible Statecraft, Mark Episkopos, Eurasia research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Washington, DC, argues that “Vance’s political ascendance represents a generational passing of the torch to a new wave of leaders who are fundamentally rethinking America’s role in the world.” These leaders see the “link between overcommitment abroad and decline at home, and they are seeking ways to break that cycle.”
At the White House on February 28, it was Vance who took the lead in attacking Zelensky and praising Trump for pursuing what he called a diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Visibly frustrated, Zelensky fired back with a pointed question: what kind of diplomacy could work with someone who had repeatedly violated previous accords? Vance took that as a personal affront. “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media,” he retorted, although it was the White House that had invited the press to the meeting in the first place.
The White House showdown will likely be remembered as a turning point in transatlantic relations. Trump’s alignment with Putin, Vance’s antagonism towards Europe, and Zelensky’s defiance encapsulated a shift from democratic solidarity to great-power pragmatism. For some, it marks the unravelling of the post-war liberal order; for others, the start of a new era where US power is no longer assumed and Europe must chart its own course. Was it a spontaneous explosion or a calculated strategy? Experts like Sam Greene of London’s King’s College believe it was deliberate, a move to reshape global geopolitics. Others see it as the unpredictable disruption that has defined Trump’s career.
Perhaps the late Henry Kissinger put it best. He made a prophetic observation on July 17, 2018, a day after Trump met Putin for a summit in Helsinki: “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It does not necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.”
For Ukraine and Europe, caught in the crosshairs, it is a bitter twist of fate either way.