The idea of Moscow as a paragon of Christian nationalism has penetrated the party of Reagan – and the lurch in US policy has huge implications for the global order

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In speech that ran for 100 minutes there was one moment when Donald Trump drew more applause from Democrats than Republicans. As the president told Congress last week how the US had sent billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, his political opponents clapped and unfurled a Ukrainian flag – while his own party sat in stony silence.

It was a telling insight into Republicans’ transformation , in the space of a generation, from a party of cold war hawks to one of “America first” isolationists. Where Trump has led, many Republicans have obediently followed, all the way into the embrace of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – with huge implications for the global democratic order.

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British PM set to call on 25 world leaders to boost Kyiv in lead-up to any peace deal or be ready to ramp up pressure on Russia

Ukrainian air defences destroyed 130 out of 178 drones launched by Russia during its latest overnight strike, Kyiv’s air force said on Saturday.

It added that another 38 drones had been “locationally lost”, typically a reference to electronic jamming, and that Russian forces had also fired two ballistic missiles.

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Our continent must be prepared to defend itself, by combining the best of its two most influential traditions

Should we all be Gaullists now? In the language of France’s most important European partner, the answer is “ Jein! ” (a German word combining ja for yes and nein for no). Yes, Emmanuel Macron has been right to warn us ever since he became France’s president in 2017 that, discerning a long-term trend of US disengagement, Europe should be ready to defend itself . Now, confronted with Donald Trump, a rogue US president putting in question an 80-year-old American commitment to the defence of Europe against Russia, lifelong Euro-Atlanticists like me must acknowledge that we need not just a Europe with more hard power – something for which I have always argued – but also the real possibility of European “ strategic autonomy ”. Oui, Monsieur le Président , you were right.

Yet en mȇme temps (at the same time), to deploy Macron’s signature trope, we should answer “ Non ”. For De Gaulle, a great man of his time, believed that defence should be the exclusive province of the nation state; that the emerging European Community should be a Europe of states (a disunited version of the European Union to which today’s hard-right populist nationalist parties dream of returning); that Britain should be excluded from the European project (hence his famous “ Non! ” to British membership in that emerging community); and that Europe should be constructed as a counterweight to the US, having close relations with Russia and China.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist

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Anti-corruption rally is culmination of months of protest shaking grip of autocratic president

Tens of thousands of people from across Serbia are expected to join an anti-corruption rally in Belgrade, in what is seen as a culmination of months of protest that have shaken the grip of the country’s autocratic president, Aleksandar Vučić.

Tensions are running high, as the president’s supporters have begun setting up camp in a park in front of the presidential palace. Earlier this week, Vučić warned that security officers would use force against people at the rally, planned for Saturday.

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UK PM to host virtual meeting of ‘coalition of the willing’ nations who have agreed to help enforce peace

Keir Starmer has warned that Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to “play games” with the possibility of a ceasefire in Ukraine, as he prepared to present proposals for a peace deal to a coalition of about 25 world leaders.

The UK prime minister will host a meeting on Saturday of the “coalition of the willing”, a group of nations that have agreed to help keep the peace in Ukraine. He will seek to pile pressure on the Russian president to “finally come to the table” and “stop the barbaric attacks on Ukraine” after Kyiv agreed this week to an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

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Shaken by rail protests, Kyriakos Mitsotakis brings in new transport minister while tacking right on migration

The Greek prime minister has appointed a former far-right student activist to the helm of the migration ministry as part of a broad reshuffle aimed at “resetting” his government amid public outrage over its handling of a deadly 2023 train crash.

In an attempt to stem declining approval ratings, Kyriakos Mitsotakis placed the self-described nationalist, Makis Voridis, in the sensitive post while selecting a number of younger officials to key portfolios including the transport ministry.

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Responding to an article by Jonathan Freedland, Michael Bowers says we are all paying the price for US delusions, Peter Riddle calls for the UK to align with its European neighbours and Francis Bown sees Donald Trump’s Gnostic tendencies

Jonathan Freedland is clearly correct when he says that Donald Trump is turning the US into a mafia state ( Journal, 7 March ), but perhaps we should consider that the potential to do so was always present.

The concept of “America First” indicated that the US intended the world to understand not just that it would put its interests ahead of others, but that there was, and should be, a global acceptance that it was the only real superpower – and that it held a moral right to that position. Trump’s ravings can be seen as a response to discovering that this was never true. The truth is that other western countries have foolishly, and needlessly, supported the US in this delusion. Now we all have to pay the price.

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Losing the territory strips Ukraine of one of its few solid bargaining chips in possible peace negotiations

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Under constant attack from drones attached to fibre optic cables, the soldiers scrambled in groups of two or three along hidden tracks or through fields, often walking miles on foot to get back into Ukrainian territory.

The Ukrainian retreat from the Kursk region, carried out in stages over the past two weeks, appears to mark the end of one of the most audacious and surprising operations of the conflict, and strips Ukraine of one of its few solid bargaining chips in possible peace negotiations with Russia.

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