After the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, another threat lies on Ukraine’s horizon: Donald Trump | Jonathan Freedland

The would-be president and the US right look ready to side with Putin, and walk away from a fight the free world must win

The war for Ukraine gets darker and more terrifying, and now a new front has opened up many miles away - in a US Republican party whose biggest players are itching to abandon Ukraine to its fate.

Proof of the conflict's deepening horror came this week, with the destruction on Tuesday of the Kakhovka dam in Russian-controlled Ukraine, releasing a body of water so massive it's best imagined not as a reservoir but as a great lake. The result has been the flooding of a vast swath of terrain, forcing thousands to abandon their homes and flee for their lives. But the menaces unleashed by this act go further than the immediate and devastating effect on the people who live close by.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist