‘Cruel irony’: Trump-Putin meeting in Budapest, ‘where Ukraine’s security was once guaranteed’

Peter Zalmayev, Director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative, calls the US decision to potentially provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine a welcome “escalation”, one that has clearly unsettled Vladimir Putin, even if it may not decisively alter the battlefield. While the symbolism and strategic leverage of such weapons are significant: they could enable Ukraine to carry out asymmetrical warfare, targeting Russia’s oil production and refining capacity, deepening its economic strain. All the while, Putin is biding for time and “being rewarded, unjustly” by Trump, with a meeting in a very symbolic European capital: Budapest, where, “in a cruel twist of irony”, 1994 the US, UK, and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s security in exchange for nuclear disarmament.