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It is now possible to conclude that Donald Trump is not just a Russian ally, but that his administration has become a danger to Europe – perhaps more dangerous than Vladimir Putin.
The Russian president is waging a hybrid war on the continent and in the UK. Putin is also waging war against Europe’s eastern flank in Ukraine and threatening to expand that conflict into the Baltic states, Poland or Romania. Russia has interfered with elections across Europe and is suspected to have meddled in the Brexit campaign.
But America, the most powerful country in Nato, which has been the alliance that has underpinned Western security since the end of the Second World War, is now the danger from within.
The most graphic evidence is in the renewed vigour of Russia’s attacks against Ukraine. Europe is supporting Kyiv in its defence against Putin’s invaders. The US is not, except in one crucial area – intelligence.
This week, after Ukrainian negotiators in Miami were told they should agree to pro-Russian ceasefire terms by Trump’s “negotiators” Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner or Washington would cut the flow of intelligence, they returned home.
It is not clear if the Americans then shut down their early warning system, but Russia this week has hit Ukraine with missiles and drones that Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine did not know were coming.
The Iskander missiles, which destroyed several Kyiv energy systems, may have just had a very short flight time from launch sites in Russian territory – or the Trump administration watched them fly and didn’t send the satellite warning to Ukraine.
A sudden cut in the intelligence feed to Ukraine by the US would be close to an act of war against Kyiv and, by extension, against Europe.
The US has already given Putin a massive boost with a deal to import diesel to the US, in defiance of global sanctions against Russia. The deal looks like a poorly understood effort to bring down the price of fuel that has rocketed in the US because of Trump’s war against Iran ahead of the midterm elections next month.
It will have no effect on diesel prices, but it will be the precursor to the lifting of sanctions against Russia that prevent the importation of spare parts for the refineries that Ukraine has been bombarding. Rebuilding the crude oil “cracking” systems that Kyiv has targeted would be a strategic boon for a struggling Russian economy.
But there has been a further act of near war carried out by the US against Ukraine. It has not allegedly been committed by the White House itself but by one of Donald Trump’s main allies – Elon Musk.
Reuters has reported that SpaceX has restricted the use of Starlink satellite communications by Ukraine’s armed forces.
“SpaceX has introduced a limit on some Starlink services in Ukraine, stopping the operation of its military-grade version above 100 miles an hour (160 km/h), disrupting combat missions,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said on Wednesday.
“Our defence forces did not receive a warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again?” Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote in a post on X on Wednesday. “As your European customers, we are watching you.”
Starlink dishes are the spine of Ukraine’s communications systems. They are used to guide almost every ground-based drone, every bomber drone in the air; they are how Ukrainian troops talk to each other and their headquarters across the nation.
By restricting the speed with which they can fly through the air onboard a missile or drone, SpaceX is crippling Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and to strike back against Russia.
Interfering with Starlink feeds will, and probably has, got Ukrainians killed.
We know this because when Starlink stopped Russian forces from using their terminals in Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces were able to rapidly gain tactical advantage and regain lost territory earlier this year. The same will now be true for the Russians – they will be able to kill more Ukrainians if Starlink is throttled.
The diesel deal, the possible intelligence feed cut, and the alleged Starlink strangulation are hard and hot war interventions on behalf of Russia.
Add to these the Trump administration’s hostility to Nato, which has included threats to annex or invade Nato territory (Greenland and Canada) and electoral interference on behalf of pro-Russian candidates in Europe (Viktor Orban in Hungary), the Alternative for Germany far-right party, among others and it is clear that Trump is serving only Russia’s interests. He is not working with America’s allies he is working very much against them.
Oleksandr Morezkho, the chair of Kyiv’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said: “The problem is that recently we started to have a whole range of very disturbing signs, including, in particular, the diesel deal, the demand to hold presidential elections during the war, ambiguities with Starlink and sharing intelligence information, other statements by Trump and the fact that he ignores and even tries to somehow justify Russian attacks against our civilian infrastructure.
“Taken together, it might look like an attempt to pressure us into surrender. It might be related for the internal political struggle in the US on the eve of the midterm elections but for us it’s about human lives.”
It is also about security in Europe, where Trump must now be seen as not unhinged but dangerous and hostile.
