Of course Trump is helping Russia in Ukraine – he’s a master of the art of betrayal | Jonathan Freedland

The old certainties have gone.

We will have to spend whatever it takes to protect ourselves in this new and dangerous world Donald Trump must find it oddly frustrating.

He keeps showing the world exactly who he is, and yet the world keeps refusing to believe it.

As clearly as he can, he is announcing that he is not the leader of the free world, that he is not even a reliable member of the democratic west, that he is in fact an ally of its enemies – but the west, including Britain, either doesn’t fully get the message or can’t quite bring itself to draw the obvious conclusion.

Trump had another go this week, finding multiple ways to declare that in the war between Russia and Ukraine, he is no mediator or peace broker but a partner of Vladimir Putin.

In fairness to him, the US president had loudly issued that declaration within weeks of his return to the White House when, in February 2025, he delivered an on-camera dressing down of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, seeking to humiliate the Ukrainian leader by telling him “you don’t have the cards”, even as JD Vance demanded their visitor show gratitude.

That should have made Trump’s position sufficiently plain, but in the past few days he has all but put it up in lights.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist US midterms: Trump, war and America’s future On Thursday, 5 November join Jonathan Freedland, Devika Bhat, Professor Adam Smith in London and David Smith and leading US commentator Tara Setmayer live from the US to discuss the results and their implications for the future of Trump, the US and global politics.

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