Maybe it’s personal: Europeans worry Trump just likes Putin more than Zelenskyy

In a throwaway comment this week, Donald Trump made clear that he does not regard the war in Ukraine as a conflict with fault on both sides. “Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine,” the U.S. president said. “They have not been doing that much.” To residents of Kyiv — who have endured weeks of intensifying bombardment — and Ukraine’s allies across Europe, the remark confirmed a growing impression that the U.S. is taking Russia leader Vladimir Putin’s side in the war. “American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years,” the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas told the European Parliament on Tuesday.