Listener supported, WNYC Studios.

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

From his emergence on the political scene a decade ago, Donald Trump displayed what you could

call a curious admiration for the Russian president and dictator Vladimir Putin.

It was baffling, and it was ominous too.

It remained so.

Trump's lean toward Russia was investigated, and it was psychoanalyzed.

And his affinity for Putin is as vivid as his disdain for Ukraine's democratically elected leader,

Volodymyr Zelensky.

So now we're reckoning with a distinct possibility that the leadership of the United States

has taken a moral and a strategic turn that puts us all on the side of

Russia and blames Ukraine for provoking the invasion in the first place. That's how the Kremlin sees

it as well. Over a week ago, Trump and J.D. Vance absolutely berated Volodymyr Zelensky in the White

House.

And then they announced a pause in military aid to Ukraine and a freeze on intelligence sharing.

Those are moves that will surely hobble Ukraine's ability to defend itself.

Zelensky is now trying to bolster more and more support from the leaders of Europe

who met last week at a defense summit.

For more than 30 years, since I was a reporter for the Washington Post in Moscow,

I've been talking about Russia over and over again with Stephen Kotkin.

Stephen Kotkin is a biographer of Joseph Stalin and a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

Three years ago, when Russia first launched this invasion of Ukraine, Steve was my first call.

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