It was the worst street corner for a drug deal.
US President Donald Trump’s acolytes felt perhaps that Ukraine — whose name means “borderland,” and whose loss of the definite article just three decades ago began its post-Soviet nationhood — was an easy place for a shakedown. Addled by corruption and poverty, it may have seemed accustomed — even open — to explicit acts of what some would later call bribery. A pushover.
