Rory Stewart

I'm going to say at the UN that I totally defend the territory and integrity of Ukraine.

All these things have convinced us, well, maybe we don't really need to step up.

Maybe we're not really going to be in a world where we're fighting this without the US.

And the fact is, in some ways, it's a con trick.

In fact, Philip O'Brien at St.

Andrews calls this long con.

He actually goes as far as to say it may be deliberate policy.

And it certainly would be from the Russians' point of view, which is to keep the illusion going that maybe the US will remain on Europe's side.

And by doing so, stop Europe and Ukraine really stepping up.

Final thing on this.

Again and again, the US will keep saying, this is about the fact that Europe has not spent enough on defense.

Hear, hear.

We all agree.

And therefore, Russia is Europe's problem and Europe needs to step up.

But the problem is that the US is not actually saying in this Russia-US deal, we're going to allow Europe to step up.

What it's actually saying is, yes, this is Europe's problem.

Europe's facing Russia.

And by the way, we're going to tie Europe's hands behind its back.

We're going to make sure they can't put planes forward of Poland.

We're going to stop them putting European troops into Ukraine.