What does NRC think | Zensky was right, but for Ukraine there is now an extra dangerous time

For three years, Zensky has been holding himself an admirable way in the war against his country, unleashed by Russia. On Friday, the Ukrainian president still stumbled about the dark machinations of Putin, but about Trump's. Zensky can call himself a moral winner of the diplomatic confrontation with the US president. He refused to have himself and his country humiliated for the TV cameras. Trump, JD VANCE and the present Trump-Gezinded media withdrew like a pack of wolves and Zensky fought back, albeit with the courage of despair and armed with a language that is not his mother tongue, but still: the war president made it clear that he will never accept Bullshit in the world, but not the most powerful men.

At the same time, the question is whether Ukraine is better off after Friday. The fact that Zensky on the way to the scaffold was so tangled by the White House as a lack of pragmatism. With the last support package that Trumps predecessor Biden managed to guide through the congress, Ukraine can still sing it roughly until the summer. But Ukraine has not received everything yet, and on the basis of the pattern of the past few weeks it can safely be established that Trump does not hesitate for anything. Also not for breaking a promise, for non -compliance with previous agreements or for the right of the law. In Trumps America, human trafficking Andrew Tate and war criminal Putin can count on a warm welcome, and Zelensky gets a cold shower. That says enough.

It is too easy to say that Zensky should have acted more diplomatically or would have had to operate smarter. Admittedly, it was not handy from the Ukrainian president that he was seduced by an unleashed Vance to a history lesson about the unreliability of Russia and the inability of various American presidents, including Trump during his first term, to find an answer to this. His remark that the “Nice Ocean« Who now protects the US against the war in Europe will not always continue to do this, worked like a red piece on a bull.

On the other hand, more diplomacy on the part of Zensky would not have changed the situation substantially. It has been clear for months that Trump and especially VANCE do not give a nut around Ukraine, and see Zelensky as a stand-in-the-way. Trump even called Zensky a dictator. Sooner or later it would have come to an eruption. The fact that it happened faster than expected also has an advantage. It creates brightness. Nobody in Europe cherishes the illusion after Friday that Trump will turn up and return from Putin's camp. Together with Zensky, European leaders will have to set up an emergency plan at lightning speed, rather now than (even) later.

Trump and Vance are dangerously drunk in power, imagine themselves infallible and decisive. In the wake of it, they cause enormous damage to the international position of the US and have changed the world to a much more dangerous place, without rules, solidarity, law or decency. Seen in this way it was remarkable what Zensky was thrown on Friday: lack of respect, playing with the Third World War, the destruction of one's own country. Exactly what Trump can be accused of more than ever, and with a much stronger substantiation.

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