Dr Oliver Hartwich: The day the West died

When US President Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin on 12 February, he made history – but not in a good way.

Following a 90-minute conversation, Trump announced he would meet Putin first in Saudi Arabia and then visit Moscow, while Putin would come to Washington. At NATO headquarters in Brussels, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spelled out what this means: Ukraine will never join NATO, and a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is unrealistic.