Speaking in Munich last week, America’s vice-president, J.D. Vance, offered a taste of how the home of fine wines, classical architecture and welfare cheques faces humiliation, when he ridiculed Europe as decadent and undemocratic.

Less than a month into Donald Trump’s second term, talks to end the Ukraine war have finally begun. For the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, American and Russian officials sat down in Riyadh yesterday to negotiate not just the fate of Ukraine but the future of Europe

At the end of the Cold War, President George H.W. Bush managed the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe — sometimes overruling regional leaders in the wider interests of the West and their own security. There’s no sign that Trump feels any such affinity for Europe or its future.

We are at that moment in Animal Farm when the gentle carthorse Clover looks through the window to see the pigs playing cards and drinking a toast with men.

The largest conflict on the European continent since World War II is at a turning point ahead of Monday’s third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Such a solution would conjure a cruel historical irony. Putin, who watched in despair from his post as a KGB officer in Dresden as the Soviet Union dissolved, may be on the verge of creating a new East Germany in 21st century Europe with America’s help.

President Donald Trump last week indicated that discussions had started around a summit to address how to end the Ukraine war.

Trump has humiliated Europe and criticized them for relying on the U.S. for security without contributing adequately to their defence budgets. As U.S. and American officials move forward with the talks,