From saviour to Judas… How Trump’s pivot on Russia also endangers his own country | Simon Tisdall

With a Putin-appeasing president at the helm, it is clear the transatlantic alliance is collapsing and European leaders must plot their own course

How do I betray thee? Let me count the ways… Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning for mangling her celebrated poem to reflect Donald Trump’s multiple Ukraine treacheries. This most perfidious of presidents surpassed himself last week, accusing Kyiv of invading itself three years ago . “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he fatuously griped.

Candidate Trump, touting a just peace, pledged to end the war in a day. Now he praises Vladimir Putin, claims Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is “a dictator” and backs a settlement on Moscow’s criminal, one-sided terms. This deranged collapse into craven capitulation, this transition from American saviour to American Judas, took less than a month. It’s contemptible.

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