KIRILL DMITRIEV, Russia’s main negotiator with America over the war in Ukraine, has enjoyed the past fortnight, to judge by his posts on X. On October 16th Mr Dmitriev reposted a meme about the new global order: the American eagle and the Russian bear together taking on the British lion over the fate of a fracturing European continent.
President Donald Trump’s latest bust-up with Ukraine and embrace of Russia —especially his waiver of sanctions against countries buying Russian oil—was a “truly historic moment”. Forthcoming economic deals, not least in the Arctic , prove that “the ice has broken”. As for Europe’s dismayed leaders, he claimed, this week’s violence in the streets of Paris and Milan showed European citizens were turning against “warmongering”.
On October 9th he announced a deal with Vladimir Putin to lift sanctions temporarily to allow Russia to sell more diesel to America and other countries. He promised the move would bring down fuel prices; economists think it will be ineffectual. Mr Trump then declared that Russia and Ukraine would stop bombing each other’s energy infrastructure. Russia disregarded that so-called energy ceasefire, and Ukraine observed it only briefly. It abandoned all restraint after America mysteriously failed to warn it of impending ballistic-missile attacks, and blocked its high-speed drones from using the Starlink internet-satellite system. Mr Trump claimed he had given no orders to halt such support.
On October 16th he waived new congressionally-mandated sanctions against countries buying Russian oil and gas, citing “national interests”.
Until recently European leaders thought they had successfully drawn Mr Trump away from the notion of doing deals with Russia at Ukraine’s expense. But with America’s midterm elections slightly more than two weeks away, and his Republican Party at risk of losing control of one or both houses of Congress, Mr Trump has changed his tune.
In June they even got him to sign up to a G7 statement pledging to “strengthen our sanctions, including those on the oil and gas sectors”.
In April the European Union approved loans worth €90bn ($101bn) to help pay for Ukraine’s needs this year and next. But on October 16th Mr Zelensky asked for €70bn more next year, in part to boost domestic weapons production. He got a sympathetic hearing but no promises. Many European government budgets are strained by heavy debts, rising bond yields and high energy prices. Some leaders are again pushing to use more than €200bn-worth of frozen Russian assets in Europe to fund Ukraine. Belgium, where most of them are held, has so far refused to entertain the notion, fearing the damage to property rights in Europe.
