He said: “We have to convince the US that Ukraine’s future is a decisive question not only for Ukraine, but also for European security, the international system and the US’s status as a great power.
As the US president turns on allies and embraces Russia, can the UK prime minister persuade Trump to listen to Europe’s concerns.
The necessary first response, out of self-respect, was to reject the US president’s framing of the war, as did the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, when he described Trump’s words as “an unprecedented distortion of reality and extremely dangerous”.
“Things are afoot which will be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe, and in expressing the comfort I feel that the people of the United States have once again cast these great burdens upon you, I must now avow my sure faith that the lights by which we steer will bring us safely to anchor,” he wrote.
Europe was braced psychologically for Trump to refuse further military aid to Ukraine on the basis the US had dispensed enough, and the killing had become a senseless stalemate.
