By acting with impunity and tearing up the rulebooks, warmonger leaders are setting an alarming precedent

It’s a golden rule of politics that national leaders do not interfere in other countries’ elections. Tell that to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who jumped into the middle of America’s presidential campaign last week with both feet, wearing size 10 combat boots. The resulting, resounding thud could be heard as far away as Kyiv (which was perhaps the point).

Visiting an ammunition factory in pivotal Pennsylvania, Ukraine’s war-weary president told Republican nominee Donald Trump that, when it came to his appeaser’s policy of cutting off arms supplies and accepting peace on Vladimir Putin’s terms, he was talking out of his posterior. And Trump’s oddball running mate, JD Vance, was just plain “dangerous”, he said.