WASHINGTON DC – For the first time in eight decades, European leaders are beginning a new week fully aware that the United States officially no longer has their backs.

That realisation, first sparked by the publication on Friday of Donald Trump’s dramatic national security strategy , was further underscored by the Kremlin’s reaction to it.

After reviewing the 29-page document, Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, gave it Russia’s seal of approval on Sunday, describing it as “largely consistent with our vision”. New Feature

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The extent to which Trump is ditching the post-Second World War transatlantic alliance is laid out in stark, black-and-white print across a mere two-and-a-half pages of the document, in which it a

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