Trump, Zelensky and Europe: Ukraine, sold and abandoned

It's pathetic how US President Donald Trump is selling out Ukraine and how the Europeans are standing by helplessly when they could have done much more long ago. What are they waiting for? Vladimir Putin's foreign policy advisor stated after the meeting with Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff that they were ready for talks between Ukraine and Russia mediated by the USA - but only about security guarantees for both parties to the conflict after a peace agreement and only next month.

Will Trump's patience last that long? The half-life of his statements has recently become shorter and shorter. Putin wants to persuade Trump to negotiate a ceasefire with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a three-way meeting. Without the presence of Ukraine. While Trump betrays his allies and makes ever more open pacts with Putin, the Kremlin and Europe are playing for time: the EU is waiting for the outcome of the midterm elections in the USA at the beginning of November and is keeping quiet for the time being. Putin wants to wait until April in the hope that the right-wing extremist Marine LePen will win the elections and that the unity for EU aid to Ukraine will then soon come to an end.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, hit by hundreds of Russian missiles and drones every day, is lurching toward a catastrophic winter. So far, Europe has only countered Trump's shameful betrayal with hypocrisy. It is true that people help with money and weapons. But the military equipment that Ukraine really needs to attack Putin's soldiers deep in the hinterland is not being delivered.

The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.

Since the full Russian invasion in February 2022, EU states have paid around 239 billion euros more for fossil fuels in Moscow's war chest than they have paid Ukraine in support services. The 210 billion euros of Russian central bank funds that are frozen at the Belgian payment service provider Euroclear could have long been confiscated in order to make them available to Ukraine. Because Kyiv's exporters cannot currently earn billions on their own - since Moscow blocked the Black Sea for freighters carrying Ukrainian grain.

Poland, Romania and Slovakia are letting railway wagons full of wheat and corn rot at the EU's external border. As long as it stays that way, Europe's warm words for Zelensky are pure lies. And in the end we will have to pay many times more for our security from Russia.