If you wait for the US, you’ll wait too long. An interview with Anne Applebaum
Navigate the meetingThursday, 2 October 2025 — Sergiy Sydorenko, European Pravda
Anne Applebaum has a special place among American Ukraine experts, in part because it is not always easy to decide whether the term "American" is sufficient to describe her.
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.
She has visited Kyiv many times during the full-scale war. European Pravda spoke with her in September on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy forum organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, and we used this opportunity to discuss strategic issues ranging from what Ukraine and Europe should expect in their relations with the US, to Ukraine’s future in NATO.
However, as Applebaum herself notes, in the future we may not be talking about the Alliance in its current form, but a new organisation that could well emerge on its foundations.
"If you wait for the US to solve your problem, then you might wait too long"
Let me start with questions about the US, as it is the key to Ukraine’s security.
Can I disagree? I'm not sure the US is the key.
President Zelenskyy gave this example in his speech at YES: when a senior official from the US like General Kellogg comes here, there is no shelling or air alert. If any other country or organisation sends an envoy here, the Russians don’t care.
I've actually been here many times when there's no shelling, so this may depend on other things as well.
I would just say that if you look at the amount of money spent here, and you add up together what Europeans have spent, it is significantly higher than what the US has spent.
And if we examine what weapons the US has really sent to Ukraine, with the weapons valued at their real value (which is much lower than some Pentagon-invented value), the Europeans are sending much more.
Also, remember that a war is not only fought using weapons. It is also fought with the economic strength of a country, with the ability of the government to pay the soldiers and to pay the budgets, and
a lot of that money is coming from Europe.
In fact, none of it is now coming from the United States.
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.
I completely agree with you regarding the assistance provided by the US and European countries. But there is one additional element you did not mention: Russia is not afraid of Germany, France or any other state.
That's true, although that's also because Europe has not ever acted like it's in control of its own defence before.
After the Trump administration came to office, Europe really lost six months waiting for the American president to make some move which he then didn't make.
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.
But how do you see it: is the US on our side, or not?
The US is on its own side right now. We now have a president of the United States who does not see himself as the leader of a broad democratic alliance, which was how Joe Biden, George W. Bush and Barack Obama saw themselves, and actually all American presidents going back to Franklin Roosevelt.
Trump is really the first president who doesn't think like that.
And in his first term he was still surrounded by people who felt strongly about alliances. Now he is not. Now he is surrounded by some people who are very anti-European. I don't think Trump himself is, but he is surrounded by others in his cabinet and in his immediate entourage who dislike Europe and want the US to disengage from Europe.
I believe JD Vance is also on that list.
Yes, that's not a secret.
Trump himself – I think he likes meeting with European leaders, and he seems happy enough to come to London and so on, but he doesn't see the world the way every American president has since the 1940s.
"The US doesn't have a special relationship with Europe anymore"
Do you believe that Biden’s America was on our side?
Yes.
That’s disputed in Ukraine.
Emotionally and politically, Biden made a big step.
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.
It is true that Biden and his staff were constantly self-deterred. They had decided that they could help Ukraine without provoking Russia. They didn't want to push too hard because they were spooked by Russian nuclear threats. There may even have been some moments in the war where they held back the Ukrainians because they were afraid of provoking Russia into some larger attack.
And to be clear, I think this was a terrible mistake.
But don't underestimate what Biden did.
Biden changed US foreign policy, which had never before supported Ukraine militarily, despite there being some weapons supply in the past.
What Trump definitely did was force Ukraine to change its position. For instance, Ukraine was firm that we wouldn’t accept a ceasefire without security guarantees, but Trump said we had to – and we agreed. Ukraine and European leaders made a number of changes to their positions to fit Trump’s demands. Did we make a mistake by doing that?
I think that for Ukraine to be seen as wanting peace and wanting a ceasefire is good right now, in September 2025 – in six months things may look different – because it makes clear that Ukraine wants to end the war, whereas Russia does not want to end the war. I think that was useful.
Trump’s actions and demands with respect to European countries have seemed even more extreme. Take Greenland: Trump was acting in a way previously considered impossible – behaviour only dictators like Putin could get away with. Now these are statements by the president of the US, and they are widely tolerated.
Although he didn't actually do anything yet.
Even saying that you want to annex your ally’s territory is unacceptable.
Right. And this is related to what I said at the beginning: Trump doesn't see himself as the leader of a broad democratic alliance. He doesn't feel any special sympathy with democratic allies. He's playing other games.
This together with JD Vance's speech in Munich has been a clear message to Europeans that the US doesn't have any special sentimental relationship with Europe anymore.
But it's also important to say that the United States is not on the opposite side to Ukraine. The US is not supporting Russia, and that's good.
Is the US shifting direction?
The United States’ opinion is not shifting that much. The majority of Americans continue to support Ukraine, and they continue to think the US should help Ukraine win the war, and that means different things to different people. Public opinion still supports US membership in NATO and close relations with European allies.
Public opinion hasn’t shifted that much.
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.
Can we rely on public support to define policy, to define what the president does?
Not necessarily. A lot of what Donald Trump has done does not have public support. America does not support the invasion of Greenland or the annexation of Greenland.
It's not like there's a national mood to conquer Greenland. On the contrary. What do we need Greenland for?
This president and part of the administration are not moved by what the broad public wants: they are moved by what the minority of their supporters wants. The MAGA echo chamber on Twitter is more important than people in Minnesota or Iowa or Texas. They do care about polls, but not as much as you think.
"It's useful that Ukraine keeps insisting on NATO membership"
Is Europe preparing itself for the day when the United States may say NATO membership is not in its interest?
No one is talking about that in public, but yes, pretty much every defence ministry of every important country is now talking about that and planning for it.
That doesn't mean it will happen. But people directly close to Trump have talked about withdrawing troops and support from Europe.
Do you believe that will happen?
It may happen. Maybe it's a matter of time. Maybe it was always going to be true that arrangements made in the middle of the last century would begin to crumble at some point.
But it's hard for me to say when it will happen, because it might be unpopular in the US, it might cause a popular reaction, and they may be worried about that.
Do you think that Europe and the United States will finally realise that Ukraine as a NATO member could be an asset rather than a burden for their security?
Some people do understand that. Unfortunately, for that decision you need unanimity and we aren't close to having it right now, but things can change.
It's useful that you keep insisting on membership in the Alliance. 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 believe that if NATO were somehow reformatted or even dissolved, a new European alliance would be created on its foundations.
Yes, I believe that.
And for Europe, Ukraine’s security is much more important than it is for the United States.
Of course, that seems very obvious to me, and I encourage 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.
Having relationships with them is particularly important.
Southern Europe is a little different – Southern Europeans feel farther away, the war doesn't seem as immediate a threat to them and fair enough: if you live in Portugal, Ukraine is far away.
But for the countries around the Baltic Sea, and for the big countries – Germany, France, UK – Ukraine is important, and their current leadership understands that, and they are willing to work together.
It may be that the version of Europe that you will have a relationship with will be not the EU or NATO, but will be something else. That's what the Coalition of the Willing is designed to create. I don't know what it's going to be called or how it's going to work, but in addition to the EU and NATO, there may be something else.
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