Washington wants the Ukraine president’s scalp – so Kyiv has no choice but to ignore Keir Starmer’s bad advice

For Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this is no time to grovel.

After last Friday’s ambush in the Oval Office – where the Ukrainian president, who has led his country in resistance to three years of brutal Russian aggression, was beaten up in public by Donald Trump and JD Vance – some European leaders, including Keir Starmer and the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, rushed to urge him to mend fences with Washington. It was bad advice – and Zelenskyy should ignore it. In any case he doesn’t have much choice.

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre