The US can't be trusted, it's time Europe took on Putin

With Trump and Witkoff all too eager to align with Russian demands ahead of any talks on Ukraine, Europe must take over peace negotiations

- SAM KILEY

Whether by accident or design, Vladimir Putin has a useful idiot running America.

International diplomacy has been turned on its head, enemies made friends, allies threatened, international laws defoliated.

Russian strategic policy, known as the Gerasimov doctrine, argues that chaos in the ranks of the enemy is victory and a path to greatness. By that standard Putin, should be stringing up bunting in the Kremlin.

He has achieved unimagined strategic effect by manipulating the Trump administration, which has contorted itself in its efforts to force a Russian victory on Ukraine and against Europe.

In the latest effort by the Oval Office to continue its cringing before the Russian throne, Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff, alongside business buddy Jared Kushner, has arrived in Moscow.

Why this is being countenanced by America's “allies” in Nato is baffling, were it not for the fact that there is no leader in Europe prepared to say out loud what they must all, surely, know. That Donald Trump is not a broker, he's not even a dishonest broker when it comes to Ukraine - he is on the wrong side.

Witkoff used to be seen as staggeringly inept. He turns up in the Kremlin fawning like Gollum, takes no notes, uses a Kremlin translator, and emerges from meetings with Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, brimming with admiration.