Warning, despots at the wheel!

A “lengthy and highly productive” conversation: that's how Donald Trump described the phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on 12 February. The call was originally intended to lay the foundations for lasting peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. In the end, it revived the spectre of an autocrat-to-autocrat settlement, with no consideration for Volodymyr Zelensky's Ukraine or his European allies.

Private telephone conversations, Trump's attempts to rehabilitate the Russian president on the international stage, and shock at the Munich Security Conference: a rift is opening between the United States and the European bloc. At the invitation of Emmanuel Macron, a number of European leaders met in Paris to discuss the war in Ukraine, security and the future of an EU caught between a rock and a hard place. Trump, meanwhile, intends to shift into high gear and meet with Putin in Saudi Arabia, again without Zelensky or European leaders. The date remains to be set.