"Celebration? What celebration? Feels more like a funeral" - The damn words of a former NATO figure described this week's ceremony, marking the victory of European anniversary.

Top diplomats who have spent years in the Transatlantic Defence Alliance demanded anonymity, but why so nothing? Ve Day is a joint Allied victory for Nazi Germany. Hate, dictatorship, the territorial expansionism of the Third Reich and the heinous crimes against humanity.

So much blood overflowed and won. During World War II, about 51 million Allied troops and civilians were killed, and unified pursuit of escape from the scourge of Nazism.

But for 80 years we have been surrounded by countless news and academic analysis and breathlessly viewed Donald Trump as a modern nail in the coffin of the powerful transatlantic bonds of the time. In Europe, the US president is seen by many as a killer of decades of shared values. A common concept of security, democracy and the rule of law.

But is this accurate or too simple?

To fully understand allied links after World War II, we cannot omit Russia, or now.

By 1945, about 24 million Russians and other Soviets were massacred during the war with Germany. Without their sacrifices and the sacrifices of other allies, the Nazis would not have been defeated.

"One thing we need to realize is that Russia has never been a true friend of the West," said Michael Zantovsky, former Czech ambassador to Washington and London.

"During World War II, it was for survival reasons. It needed any help (to the Nazis). It was the same story as the story of the Western powers, to be fair. They needed help from the Soviet Union. However, Russia had no plans to continue the alliance after the war. Once the Soviet threat destroyed the situation in the Soviet Union, the Nazi threat could be destroyed at any time to make up for its own goals, and to its own object.''

The moment Germany was defeated, the split appeared. There are even differences in the decline of day by day. The Western powers witnessed the military surrender signed by Germany in the French cathedral Reims, the news broke out on May 8, 1945. Russia marks VE Day from May 9 to the present day.

Depending on your European day in VE Day, moods vary - especially this year.

Western Europe welcomes freedom, democracy and ending the Nazi threat. For example, in the UK, as with each year, multiple days of celebrations are planned this year.

But people living in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Czechoslovakia, emerged from the Nazi occupation in 1945 until they were eventually made by the communist regime - whether they liked it or not.

As a result, Ambassador Zantovsky described his country's relationship with VE Day as "ambiguous".

He told me: “The western part of Czechoslovakia was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

Czechoslovakia was taken over by the Communist Party in 1948 and was completely invaded by the Soviet Union twenty years later. "In the communist era, the role of the West in World War II was deliberately suppressed and marginalized. We were told that we owe our freedom (from the Nazis) to the Soviet Union."

Russia marked the military parade of the victors, and Vladimir Putin knew the deep sense of the Russians defeating the Nazi regime in 1945. His public labeling of Ukraine’s leadership “Nazis” was not accidental to stuff them into Russia’s eyes.

This year, President Putin convened a three-day ceasefire with Ukraine because he wanted to concentrate and uninterruptedly, showing off Russia's military muscles in front of a group of foreign guests, including China's Xi Jinping.

The official reason Putin gave Ukraine a ceasefire was "humanitarian reasons." Ironically, he was the one who ordered the invasion of that sovereign state.

This invasion brought back difficult memories of the Czechs about their profession and suppression. "That's why we feel so strongly about Ukraine," Zantovsky said.

"Only a few hundred kilometers. Our sense of security is threatened again."

That's why most Europeans are shocked by President Trump's obvious respect for Putin, and even respect for Putin, while verbally threatening traditional territorial integrity such as traditionally closed allies.

Europe has regarded the United States as its closest friend since World War II. Washington threw money into the war-breaking continent in the late 1940s, including West Germany, which brought it back to the U.S. after Nazist terror. The United States also provided European security assurances after the war; NATO was established in 1949.

But this is not the American altruism that Trump suggests. This is also a convenient marriage.

After World War II, the United States was worried about the spread of communism. It is shocking that Europe is vulnerable to local communists in its ragged economy and infrastructure, and is also from the expansionist Soviet Union. By diving to help rebuild Europe, the United States gained a geographical strategic foothold at the Soviet Union’s doorstep throughout the Cold War.

The idea of ​​a “Western” made of countries that share security goals and values ​​was born.

Maybe we are now witnessing its death or gradual stifle? Since it is no longer a common enemy, friendship will surely be in trouble. In 2025, the US president no longer feels threatened by Russia.

"The common history is the foundation of eighty years of the (transatlantic) relationship, but that's not enough to move forward that relationship forward," former NATO ambassador Julie Smith told me.

The war in Ukraine was the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. As Russia's economy is firmly in a position of war, it has the potential to spread.

Unlike the United States, Europe still feels threatened by Russia. Trump seems to blame Ukraine rather than Moscow, because it is the capital of the entire African continent.

In late February, at a television press conference held in the Oval Office of the White House, Trump and his deputy JD Vance appeared to be trying to decoy, Beberate and humiliate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a turning point in European public opinion and politics.

A poll conducted by YouGov in March showed that from VE Day, the majority of the majority of Western Europeans (78% in the UK, 74% in Germany, 75% in Spain) now sees the White House as a huge threat to peace and security in Europe.

In eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union's influence area, there are concerns that President Trump's attitude towards Ukraine will only inspire President Putin's expansionists.

Historian and author Timothy Garton Ash said that if Russia gained recognition in Ukraine's "crime of conquest" this year would be the best marked as de de day-failed in Europe.

With Trump regularly accusing European freeloads and taking advantage of the U.S., leaders across the continent are nervous that they may defend themselves alone. In the European capital, improving defensive support is an important topic.

The message Berlin has been conveyed from the first 100 days of Trump’s tenure: “We can’t rely on the United States anymore,” said Peter Wittig, former German ambassador to Washington.

It was a huge turnaround for the Germans who were reluctant to rebuild their country's army after World War II. Instead, Germany is particularly inclined to American security. A large portion of the approximately 100,000 U.S. troops stationed in Europe are located in Germany. The United States also stores nuclear weapons in the country.

Often, the ace shock among ordinary German politicians is so profound that it prompted a change in the constitution this spring. Members of parliament voted to cancel Berlin's long-established debt brakes (which limit government spending) in order to invest heavily and push for the country's military power.

Ursula von der Leyen, who was once the German defense minister, is now the president of the European Commission in Brussels. She is transatlantic and well-spoken, but even though she sums up the current situation thoroughly: “The West as we know it no longer exists.”

Nevertheless, the United States' hub away from Europe cannot be blamed solely on Trump.

Now, the White House sees China rather than Russia as a strategic threat first for some time. In 2012, then-U.S. President Barack Obama said he wanted to focus his foreign policy on Asia, while Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, spent a lot of time trying to place China-Wary Wary allies in the Indo-Pacific.

Ambassador Wittger said that Trump still does not have Trump, focusing his foreign policy on Asia and withdrawing from Europe in large quantities is unlikely to change.

Wittig called it "the end of the era - the end of European participation".

Despite all the hand twists in Europe, it’s time for the continent’s leaders to give more responsibility and provide their own defense capabilities rather than relying on Washington after ve Day.

Some also see the potential for relationship reset. Ambassador Zantovsky called it "an opportunity brought by the crisis, a sense of security that has not existed in the past 30 years (in Europe).

Perhaps, but during the Cold War, Western European societies had a younger population and a slimmer welfare state. Spend 4% or 5% of GDP on defense.

Analysts say this is now a need to avoid the U.S. security backing, but whether current voters will accept the painful compromises needed — for example, in terms of government cuts in health or education — in exchange for promoting their nation’s defense capabilities.

In European countries, especially those further away from Russian orbit, the feeling of immediate threat is less acute.

Mr. Garton Ash wants to know if there is a transitional road from the current US-led NATO to the more European NATO, which is still on the table, but Europe is responsible for its own safety.

"We need a new generation of political leaders who meet the challenges," said Sir Anthony Selton, a political historian and biographer.

“Demand usually brings the right people,” he added.

"Something must be broken. The future is uncertain. We have to go to war regularly to realize how terrible it is and force us to work together?"

They have been through eighty years of history and the surviving World War II veterans will tell you that they eagerly hope that the situation will not.