How US plans to "leave Europe" and what Ukraine should do: key takes from Anne Applebaum’s interview

Anne Applebaum has a special place among American Ukraine experts.

A historian of Central and Eastern Europe and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Applebaum has also been a Polish citizen since 2013. She is also well-known as the wife of Polish politician and current foreign minister Radosław Sikorski.

This combination of American and European backgrounds is of particular value, as Applebaum offers a comprehensive and at times very unconventional perspective.

European Pravda editor Sergiy Sydorenko spoke with her on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy forum, organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, about strategic issues for Ukraine and Europe – relations with the US and the future of NATO.

Read more in the full interview: If you wait for the US, you’ll wait too long.

Former US President Biden made a big step emotionally and politically.

Remember, before 2022 Ukraine wasn't really a US ally, and there was no long tradition of US military cooperation with Ukraine like the US had with the rest of Europe and Israel. So the shift that Biden made to arming the Ukrainians and eventually sending heavy weaponry was a big shift.

Now, however, Ukraine effectively has only European support. American assistance is absent.

"Of course the US is an important player. But if you wait for the US and you think that the US will somehow solve your problem, then you might wait too long," Applebaum says.

We now have a president of the United States who does not see himself as the leader of a broad democratic alliance. What changed is that the people in the White House – some of them – belong to the minority of Americans who do not want to help Ukraine and who do not want to be involved in Europe at all – for the first time since 1945.

But it is also important, Applebaum stresses, that the United States is not on the opposite side to Ukraine. The US is not supporting Russia, and that's good.

The US contributes a few things that nobody else has. They have the satellite system that provides intelligence, and they have some forms of air defence that no one else has.

Moreover, Russia truly fears the United States in a way it does not fear European countries.

Meanwhile, no one is talking about that in public, but yes, pretty much every European defence ministry of every important country is now talking about that and planning that the United States may say NATO membership is not in its interest.

"That doesn't mean it will happen. But people directly close to Trump have talked about withdrawing troops and support from Europe," she says.

Ukraine is still no closer to NATO membership. But, Applebaum says, it's useful that you keep insisting on membership in the Alliance.

Regardless of NATO’s fate, it's also important for Ukraine to have very deep security partnerships with a number of European countries, and you have them, or you're developing them.

"I also believe that even if NATO is reformatted or even dissolved, we will see a new European security union would be created on its foundations."

That is why she urges Ukrainian politicians and activists to make sure that they have close ties across Europe and not only in the United States.

"It's simpler to just think about the United States, because then you only have one country and one set of politics to worry about. But actually, it's safer to have ties with Britain, with France, with Germany, with Poland, with Sweden, with Denmark, with Finland, with the Baltic states.

These are all countries that understand the importance of the war for their own security, who have real armies and sophisticated weapons, and in some cases real nuclear weapons," Applebaum concludes.