It’s warming up in Kyiv. The temperature has risen from -5C to 4C. Sometimes, the sun peeps through breaks in the clouds, but Kyivites are not much cheered by the sunshine. They are not watching for signs of spring as they usually do at this time of year. The atmosphere in the city and in the country as a whole has been one of nervous expectation. This was not an expectation of an end to military action or the signing of a peace treaty with Russia – nothing so specific. Indeed, it was not at all clear what we were waiting for, but it was something connected with Donald Trump and the change in US policy towards Ukraine.

Clarity emerged at today’s macabre theatre at the White House: handshakes, a thumbs up and some fist pumps from the US president, before Trump sat side by side with Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss a minerals-for-war-support deal and to humiliate him. At the same time, air raid sirens were sounding in northern and eastern Ukraine. Soon the talks were off and Zelenskyy was gone.

What proceeded, in front of TV cameras, was chilling, extraordinary. Zelenskyy grave, angry, desperate – as befits a leader being obliged to bargain away his nation’s birthright. Trump claiming to be the honest broker, saying: “I am not aligned with anybody. I am aligned with the world.” Be thankful, he tells a man who has seen his people murdered, his territory captured and besieged. “Make a deal or we’re out.”

It got worse. Zelenskyy showed him photos of war atrocities. “I think President Trump is on our side,” he said, with no genuine hope and certainly no expectation that that was true. The vice-president, JD Vance, attacked Zelenskyy for being disrespectful. Both Trump and Vance verbally pummelled........

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