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He was briefed to go in bullying with what Trump assumed was a cut-and-dried "deal" rather than the Kremlin-created "map" he had to retreat to describing it as.

With that out of the way, once it was obvious Ukraine wasn't going to - couldn't even if it wanted to - sign what was being offered on the dotted line, hopefully Driscoll's attitude was more reasonable.

I'm sure the Ukrainians have a better handle on their situation than he does anyway. Budanov will no doubt have set him right on a few points, which may or may not make their way back to his deranged master. The Ukrainians are less reliant on US weaponry than they were. Some of the European anti-aircraft batteries perform better against some of the Russians' drones etc. than Patriots do, for instance.

I think Zelensky has felt he has to keep the US on board to avoid piling more pressure on his other allies, as although arms production's been ramping up, some of them face their own potential threats from Russia, but if things carry on as they are, the US may become too much of a disruptive liability to be worth involving any more. Personally, I wish Trump had just had a final tantrum and stopped meddling much earlier in the year.