The fallout of Trump's halt on military aid for Ukraine

What happened

President Trump this week suspended U.S. military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, just days after a contentious Oval Office meeting in which he publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for failing to cooperate with his plan for a cease-fire with Russia. Ukraine had been expected to receive some $9 billion in U.S. weapons and equipment this year, including desperately needed artillery, ammunition, and air-defense systems. Those shipments are now on hold, along with U.S.-supplied intelligence that helps Ukraine target Russian forces and that gives Kyiv advance warning of incoming Russian drone and missile strikes. “Thousands of people will die” because of the “catastrophic” decision, said Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko. CIA director John Ratcliffe said the pause “will go away” if Zelensky shows he’s willing to return to the negotiating table.

Relations between Zelensky and the Trump administration collapsed after the Ukrainian leader noted at a White House press conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin had violated previous cease-fires. Putin would likely violate a new agreement, Zelensky said, without U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv—something Trump has refused to provide. “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vice President JD Vance replied. Trump then tore into Zelensky on camera, saying he was “gambling with World War III.” White House officials expelled the Ukrainian delegation, and an agreement that would have given the U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth was left unsigned. Zelensky later called the Oval Office clash “regrettable.”

In a bid to heal U.S.-Ukraine ties, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron scrambled to put together a more favorable cease-fire plan, with Macron proposing a one-month limited truce and plans for European peacekeepers to be deployed to Ukraine. Vance dismissed the plan, saying the U.S. minerals deal was “a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.” In a joint address to Congress, Trump said he’d received a letter from Zelensky agreeing to talks, and declared that Russia was “ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?”

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What the editorials said

Putin must have delighted in the “Oval Office brawl,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump and Vance dressed down Zelensky “as if he were a child late for dinner,” with Vance claiming the Ukrainian leader had shown insufficient gratitude “for U.S. aid, though he has thanked America countless times.” They had not a word of criticism for the dictator who invaded Ukraine in 2022. Trump may not like dealing with a war that didn’t start on his watch. But he doesn’t want to be remembered as the president who surrendered Ukraine to Putin, “with all the damage to U.S. interests that would result.”

One positive thing Trump did achieve with his “tantrum” is to put the rest of the West on high alert, said The Boston Globe. Zelensky received a hero’s welcome in London this week, where Starmer announced a new $2.7 billion loan for Ukraine and joined other European leaders in pledging a “coalition of the willing” to supply weaponry and potentially peacekeeping troops. But their promises remain vague, and any peace deal would “require at least the grudging participation of the U.S.”

What the columnists said

Zelensky made a “big mistake” in the White House, said Eli Lake in The Free Press. When Vance falsely claimed that the Biden administration had never tried diplomacy with Putin, the Ukrainian leader should have chosen to “nod politely and let it go” in the interest of seeing the minerals deal completed. Instead, he brought up Putin’s past broken promises—including a 2019 cease-fire signed during Trump’s first term. But Zelensky’s “poor diplomatic tactics” don’t negate his wider point: That any deal that doesn’t guarantee Ukraine’s security from future Russian attack is functionally meaningless.

The U.S. is now “a de facto Putin ally,” said Jim Geraghty in National Review. Don’t take my word for it: Russian state media is celebrating Zelensky’s verbal battering in the White House, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov says Trump’s agenda “largely aligns with our vision.” Trump has “explicitly said” he trusts Putin more than Zelensky, and for all his calls to “halt the killing,” he has “demanded no concessions from Russia.”

Trump’s “spineless defenders” in the GOP are falling in line, said Mona Charen in The Bulwark. In 2022, Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed to “stand with and for Ukraine’s freedom until every Russian soldier is expelled.” But last week, he claimed he was “never more proud” of Trump and called Zelensky’s behavior “disrespectful.” House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded Zelensky return to the negotiating table “in gratitude” or resign. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio has transformed himself from a hawk into a “toady” for a man determined to “destroy the Western alliance.”

If the U.S. keeps aid on pause, can Europe “fill in the gap?” asked The Economist. The European Union has announced plans to boost defense spending by $845 billion, and Ukraine is “also rapidly expanding” its own defense industry. Still, the U.S. had been providing “a large chunk of Ukraine’s military aid” until this week, and the logistics of replacing it require time that Ukraine does not have. And so “the war’s horror” continues, said Nick Paton Walsh in CNN.com, with Russia targeting civilians and Kyiv struggling to take out Moscow’s missiles and drones. “There are no good choices ahead for Ukraine, no sure bets”—except widespread opposition to surrender. “Dignity is also a value,” one Kyiv resident told me. “If Russia cannot destroy it, why does the U.S. think it can?”

What next?

Putin “now seems even more likely to hold out for a deal on his terms,” said Anton Troianovski in The New York Times, and he could “expand his push on the battlefield.” Russia might try to grab more of the eastern Ukrainian regions it claims to have already annexed, and could even return to the “broader territorial aims” of its 2022 invasion, when its forces stormed toward Kyiv and the port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv. Putin may face little resistance from Trump, said Dave Lawler in Axios. His administration has already ordered the U.S. Cyber Command to cease some offensive operations against Russia, and Trump is reportedly considering sanctions relief for Moscow and “hinting at regime change in Kyiv.” It all reflects Trump’s “preference for dealing superpower to superpower, in a world dictated by hard power.”