Trump shakes transatlantic alliance with sudden Russia pivot

Asia World

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet US President Donald Trump separately at the White House this week to try to convince him to stick by Ukraine.

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Trump’s sudden shift on Kyiv has shaken the transatlantic alliance to its core, prompting European leaders to journey across that same ocean in a desperate bid to shore it up.

Fears are growing in European capitals that the bond forged from the ruins of World War 2 is on the verge of collapse as Trump pursues talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In Trump, many see a president who has abandoned the traditional US view of a rules-based world order in favour of a nationalist, great power game with Moscow and Beijing.

That has caused panic on a continent that has relied on US security assurance for 80 years.

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Trump calls Ukraine’s Zelensky a dictator, tells him to move fast or lose his country

Trump calls Ukraine’s Zelensky a dictator, tells him to move fast or lose his country

“The Europeans are running around with their hair on fire,” Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia programme at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told Agence France-Presse.