Putin Still Holds All The Cards In Ukraine

While we anguish over Donald Trump's wars on trade, judges, migrants, aid recipients and universities, spare a thought for Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

- MAX HASTINGS

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, Mr. Zelenskyy expressed his willingness to meet Russia's Vladimir Putin in Istanbul, but the Russian declined, sending only a delegation of Kremlin stooges. Mr. Trump then cancelled. Mr. Trump has made plain his impatience with both sides in the war, and especially his lack of sympathy for Mr. Zelenskyy. He has nursed a personal grudge since, in his first term, the Ukrainian leader refused to help him skewer Hunter Biden.

The Ukrainians surely felt a surge of alarm on hearing Mr. Trump's latest pronouncement, that peace will only come when he and Putin meet face-to-face. If indeed such an encounter takes place, the US president's mountainous conceit could well mean that he will agree to anything, surrender anything, to be able to declare that he has cut a deal.