Russia wants America and China to decide Ukraine\u2019s future without Kyiv. Europe must challenge this dangerous return to diplomacy of the strong for the strong<\/p>\n
Does Vladimir Putin know exactly how to play Donald\u00a0Trump? The history of chummy<\/a> phone calls, high-profile meetings<\/a> and attempts to bring Russia in from the cold certainly suggests that Moscow\u2019s thuggish ruler has a hold on this American president. If Mr\u00a0Trump agrees to negotiate<\/a> Ukraine\u2019s future with Mr\u00a0Putin and China\u2019s Xi Jinping without Ukraine at the\u00a0table, he will have handed the Russian leader a victory before talks begin. The message will be that strongmen are ruling the world and determining the fate of weaker nations.<\/p>\n Ukraine has the right to determine its future. That right cannot be waved away by a self-serving Russian proposal, however much it indulges Mr Trump\u2019s belief that world affairs should be settled by powerful men. The scales are falling<\/a> from European eyes. Trumpian America is raising doubts about whether it will help deter aggression or even honour its Nato commitments. If Washington now rewards Moscow and pressures Ukraine to accept a raw deal, it would be a betrayal<\/a>. European governments would wonder where America might be in\u00a0the future when their own security is threatened.<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Russia wants America and China to decide Ukraine\u2019s future without Kyiv. Europe must challenge this dangerous return to diplomacy of the strong for the strong Does Vladimir Putin know exactly how to play Donald\u00a0Trump? The history of chummy phone calls, high-profile meetings and attempts to bring Russia in from the cold certainly suggests that Moscow\u2019s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}