By @mlukacs

This tense exchange between Trump, Vance and Zelensky will go down in history as a remarkable lesson in realpolitik. Countries are not 'friends', they defend interests. For years, Zelensky was hoisted by Biden and an EU interested in perpetuating a war that Ukraine was never going to win. The Russian invasion was a concrete response to the irresponsible NATO advance since the Maidan in 2014, a revolution orchestrated and financed by the most abject regressivism (I suggest consulting the contributions of the American historian John Mearsheimer on this and other derivative issues). Zelensky was the best media puppet they could get and has done a great job appealing to victimhood while he received billions of dollars from his 'allies' (oversight of those resources is conspicuous by its absence) and millions of his compoatriots - soldiers and civilians - died in the war. The Russian-Ukrainian war has been an orgy of blood, money and corruption that must stop now. With this public role-playing, Zelensky has lost what little negotiating ground he had left and the U.S. government will no longer consider him as a valid interlocutor. Undoubtedly, a change of era.