For U.S. President Donald Trump, the White House's publication on Wednesday of a memo summarizing his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fueled a domestic political crisis. For Zelenskiy, it was a far-reaching diplomatic disaster.
Zelenskiy's comments to the Republican Trump, disclosed in the summary, will likely irk U.S. Democrats, risking the bipartisan U.S. support that Kyiv requires, and also irritate France and Germany, which Zelenskiy criticized in the same exchange.
Locked in a geopolitical standoff with Russia after Moscow annexed the Crimea region and backed pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine needs all the international friends it can get.