WE DIDN’T START this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it,” Pete Hegseth, America’s secretary of war, told Americans on March 2nd.
To observers of Russia, the phrase sounded familiar. “We did not start this so-called war. On the contrary, we are trying to finish it,” Vladimir Putin had told Russians a few years earlier, after invading Ukraine.
Mr Putin’s recognition of his own words in English may help to explain Russia’s muted response to the assault on Iran by America and Israel. There is, in fact, little Russia can do to help Iran, a country with which it has been tentatively allied for years.
But even if it could, it remains unclear how much it would want to do so: for Mr Putin, friendly relations with Donald Trump may take precedence.