IN THE span of a single week, the alliance between Washington and Kyiv went from strained to openly fractured.
On October 9, as US, Ukrainian and European negotiators met in Miami, President Donald Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and announced a deal to buy Russian diesel, with a temporary sanctions relief attached. The next day he said Ukraine needed “a new leader who can make a deal.”
By October 14, Volodymyr Zelensky was telling Piers Morgan he felt betrayed, and that it was a pity Ukraine was losing a strong partner. A day later Trump told the American cable network Newsmax he found Zelensky harder to deal with than Putin.