Donald Trump frequently emphasized his ability to swiftly end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Donald Trump frequently emphasized his ability to swiftly end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
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During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump frequently emphasized his ability to swiftly end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, presenting it as a hallmark of his foreign policy decisiveness.
It has been nearly 160 days since US President Donald Trump launched a major effort to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. But tangible progress has yet to be made. More than five months into Trump’s presidency, the war intensifies rather than ends. For the author of “The Art of the Deal” who confidently pledged to swiftly end the war, Trump’s progress thus far has been marked by delay and indecisiveness.
Analysts remain divided. Some see the possibility of a resolution emerging soon, while others argue the conflict is still far from any diplomatic breakthrough. The rounds of diplomatic visits to Moscow and Kyiv and the Middle East are yet to produce meaningful results.
It has been five months since Trump used condescending words for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while approving of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although he claimed to secure Russian commitment for a limited ceasefire, particularly on energy infrastructure, Trump is no closer in persuading Putin towards formal negotiations.
Now, US President Trump appears to change his tack to bring the two leaders to the negotiating table. The process to this effect has turned out to be as difficult as everyone — apart from Trump and his team — had predicted. As the scale of the challenge dawned upon them, the tune coming from Trump administration is subtly changing.
In Putin, Trump faces a crafty, experienced adversary who looks to exploit the American president’s impatience to coerce Ukraine into signing away what the Russians have failed to accomplish with military boots on the ground.
Trump’s aides, including his Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, initially drafted a strategy. Under the plan, the US would withhold military aid to Ukraine unless the latter agreed to hold peace negotiations with Russia. On the other hand, the plan involved US increasing its military support to Ukraine, if Russia refused to a peace deal.
Instead of sticking to the plan, Trump has refused to increase military aid to Ukraine or sanction Russia despite Moscow’s refusal to accept a ceasefire. He has also vacillated between criticizing the Kremlin and praising Putin.
“Trump had famously promised during the campaign that he would bring about peace between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours — only to discover that war, unlike business, doesn’t bend to self-declared dealmakers”
The Trump administration expressed readiness to make significant concessions to Moscow, including US recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, a ban on Ukraine’s NATO membership, and lifting sanctions. Yet, the Russian leader is denying Trump his vowed peace.
For half a year, President Trump has been threatening to simply walk away from the frustrating negotiations for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Within a month since Trump assumed the presidency of the US, there have been remarkable shifts in American policy towards Ukraine. What appeared as a total US commitment to strategically defeat Russia a few months ago has now transformed into a refusal to defeat the adversary.
The deeper question now is whether he is also abandoning America’s four -year-long policy of supporting Ukraine.
Trump wants peace so that America should not spend any more money supporting a war that cannot be won. In exchange, he wants Ukraine to hand over the rights of its mineral wealth. His constantly bickers calling the war “stupid” and “not fair” and that the US was getting nothing for its support of the war effort. As part of the Russia-Ukraine deal, some critics argue that Trump’s approach could result in de facto concessions of rare earth resources to Russia.
Trump, an open admirer of Putin in the past, has turned more critical of the Russian president. Amid drone and missile attacks, Trump called him “CRAZY” and opined that he is “playing with fire.”
For Trump, this is a reversal. In his social media posts in recent months, he episodically threatened tariffs and sanctions against Russia if it refused to join Ukraine in declaring a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.
Trump had famously promised during the campaign that he would bring about peace between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours, giving the impression that such was an easy task for a master negotiator.
He has since discovered it is much more difficult than he had imagined. Trump’s assumption was that he could bully Ukraine into giving Russia what it wanted by embracing Russian narrative about the war and threatening to cut off US support to Kyiv. This approach was predicted to fail.
Trump’s campaign pledge to end the conflict seems to be losing momentum. Chances remain that those promises may never be fulfilled. This is angering Trump. Amidst all this, he has threatened to slap nations purchasing Russian oil with a 50% tariff, unless President Putin agreed to a ceasefire in the near term.
Trump is increasingly becoming frustrated with Russia stalling talks. Without doubt Trump still holds some cards. He is mulling over imposing sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet of illegal oil tankers if no ceasefire comes before the end of the month. These shadow tankers have been crucial to funding Putin’s invasion over the past three years.
One key element of a U.S. maximum pressure strategy would be additional U.S. sanctions. Last week, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham claimed that seventy-two of his Senate colleagues had agreed to impose “bone-crushing” sanctions on Russia. These sanctions would cripple Russia’s energy exports and compound the impact of tariff-induced oil price declines. As Russia’s GDP growth has slowed to 1.4 percent and budget deficit has soared to 1.7 percent, these sanctions would squeeze Putin’s war machine at an inopportune time.
Vladimir Putin has shown no signs that he is willing to end the fighting or budge from his maximalist conditions to agree to a truce. His maximalist stances include demilitarization of Ukraine, its ban from NATO and rejection of any security guarantees for it. In addition, he wants the world to recognize Ukrainian territories his country occupied in the war as Russian territories.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it would never accept such terms as part of a ceasefire with Moscow. Popular sentiment in Ukraine and within its armed services cannot be negated. Elements within the Ukrainian military would not accept a deal that would leave their country so obviously vulnerable.
The latest push for peace comes amid renewed Russian offensive against strategic cities of Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s east.
“For now, Russia has the edge on the battlefield. But its war machine is straining — economically, industrially, and demographically”
As the war in Ukraine enters its fourth summer, Russia is on the offensive again.
After weeks of nebulous ceasefire efforts pushed on by semi-engaged President Donald Trump, the war between Russia and Ukraine is intensifying again in an unprecedented way.
Kyiv has warned in recent months of Russian troops mounting fresh pushes in the country to strengthen its negotiating position. Ukrainian officials reported new Russian efforts in the northeastern Kharkiv and Sumy regions of Ukraine. According to Deep State, a Ukrainian group that maps the conflict using combat footage and maintains ties to the Ukrainian defense ministry, during Russia’s unilateral “ceasefire” from May 8 to 10, the country’s forces launched more assaults per day than they did over the same period in April. It recorded about 155 separate attacks each day over a three-day period.
Stakes are rising and all this seems merely a prelude to the main event — a large-scale summer offensive by Russia that aims to break Ukrainian morale and deliver President Vladimir Putin a victory at all costs.
It is the first time in four years of war that Russian troops have entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, a sign of battlefield momentum.
After incremental gains for months, Russian forces are advancing on Ukrainian battlefronts at the fastest pace this year. They are bombarding Ukrainian cities with some of the biggest drones and missiles. They have even opened up a new front in northern Ukraine. The Kremlin’s summer offensive appears to be underway.
The advance also highlights Russia’s momentum on the battlefield. Last month, Russia captured over 200 square miles of territory in Ukraine, more than double its gains in April. It is the second-highest monthly advance since the first year of the war, according to the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based research organization tracking battlefield developments.
The most pessimistic scenario is that if the Russian army fulfills its plan in the Donetsk region in the summer of 2025, it may launch an offensive on Kharkiv in fall. At the same time, there are two crucial elements of Ukrainian defense that the Russians will certainly try to hit to weaken Ukrainian defense capabilities. The guided bombs with UMPK kits (UMPK stands in Russian for universal guidance and correction module) will be used for this purpose.
Russia recently set its sight on the city of Sumy in Ukraine’s north, deploying over 67,000 soldiers. Russia launched missile attacks claimed 31 Sumy residents in two days.
Russia is advancing around Kostyantynivka and in the Sumy region with small, fast-moving units as both sides try a new tactic of using motorcycles and civilian cars to quickly cross open terrain.
Russia’s summer offensive in eastern Ukraine, launched in May, is showing battlefield gains across multiple fronts, probing, and attacking with small, fast-moving units as fighting escalates daily.
With its advance, Russia has shifted the war’s rhythm. In May, Russian forces seized roughly 173 square miles, more than double April’s gains, according to Deep State. Most gains came south of Kostyantynivka, in the Donetsk region, and near the Russian border in the northern Sumy region.
The Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom estimated that Russian forces seized additional 143sq km (55sq miles) of Ukrainian land in March, compared with 196sq km (75sq miles) in February and 326sq km (125sq miles) in January.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington DC-based think tank, identified the same trend, estimating Russian gains of 203sq km (78sq miles) in March, 354sq km (136sq miles) in February and 427sq km (165sq miles) in January.
As the summer fighting season gets underway in the fourth year of Putin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Russia has clearly shifted its main effort to permanently destabilize Ukraine. As Putin ramps up his summer offensive in Ukraine, will he succeed?
Analysts say Russia is unlikely to have the resources to conduct large-scale offensives at multiple points along the hundreds of miles of frontline this summer. But it could concentrate more soldiers and equipment at certain points to keep Ukrainian defenses on edge.
Military analysts say Russian forces this month began their latest concerted attempt to achieve a breakthrough, despite Moscow’s representatives engaging in direct peace talks with Ukraine since 2022.
Russia is also expanding several brigades into larger divisions. All this will take years to accomplish. But if Russia succeeds, notes Lithuania’s intelligence agency, it will increase troops, equipment, and weapons on its western front by 30 to 50 percent.
On paper, Russia has big plans. It aims to expand its armed forces to 1.5 million active troops from about 1.3 million in September. In 2023, it announced the creation of a new tactical formation, the 44th Army Corps, in Karelia, along the Finnish border. The 44th’s first units suffered major losses in Ukraine last year.
After three years of fighting, war has become an ideology. In the past, 60% of Russians said that the government’s priority should be to raise living standards. Today, that share has fallen to 41%. Instead, 55% now say they want Russia to be respected as a world power. Putin has put the whole of Russian society onto a war footing.
The Russian arms industry creates employment. Generous payments to soldiers and their families amount to 1.5% of GDP. Russian defense spending is at the highest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It now accounts for a third of all government expenditure.
The government’s budget increased by 26% last year and will rise by another 16% next year. Defense spending last year was forecast at 13.1 trillion rubles ($145.9 billion), or 6.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The defense spending was 40 percent higher than the previous year.
Spending on health and education, meanwhile, is falling in real terms. Putin also uses war as his excuse for ever-harsher repression and isolation from the West.
The population of Russia at 144 million was shrinking even before the war, so was the workforce of around 75 million people.
To sustain recruitment at its current rate of 30,000 a month, the army has had to raise its signing bonus more than fivefold, from 200,000 Rubles at the start of the war to 1.2m on average now. In addition, at least 650,000 Russians, and as many as one million have fled the country to avoid being sucked into the war machine. Although this is only around 1% of the pre-war workforce, they are disproportionately young and educated.
At the same time, the birth rate has fallen to levels not seen since the 1990s, at the nadir of Russia’s economic collapse after the fall of the Soviet Union. The typical Russian woman is expected to have 1.4 children in her lifetime, far below the 2.1 needed to keep the population stable. In January this year, there were fewer than 100,000 births for the first time ever. Even were the war to end tomorrow, it has altered Russia’s demographic trajectory.
A recent study by the Public Sociology Laboratory, an independent research group, gives a sense of the alienation ordinary Russians feel about the war. It examined three provincial towns, each in a different region.
Buryatia in eastern Russia, Ural in the center and Krasnodar in the south. Over several weeks ethnographers conducted interviews and observed everyday life, providing first-hand reporting on the mood in Putin’s political heartland.
The study found that Russians in such places are neither indoctrinated militarists nor passive automatons, as is often assumed. Instead, they are equally alienated from the state, jingoistic patriots and from pro-Western exiles. In all three towns pro-war propaganda has all but disappeared.
President Vladimir Putin’s unwavering commitment to his maximalist ambition in Ukraine has polarized Russian society. A March 2025 Levada Centre poll revealed that 59 percent of Russians support the initiation of peace negotiations, and that figure soared to 76 percent amongst Russians under the age of 24.
Foreign sanctions have crippled Russian industry by depriving it of critical materials needed to produce some of technologically advanced weapons. A case in point – tantalum, a rare mineral used in capacitors in most high-tech industries. Tantalum capacitors used in various components are essential to Russia’s new and most advanced military supplies — from cruise and ballistic missiles to drones and tanks.
The rare earth element is mostly found in countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, and China. These countries supply tantalum to most of the world. However, Russia is struggling to acquire enough tantalum for its weapons industry. This is largely due to the US and European Union enforced sanctions on the element.
Russia imports most of the tantalum from countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, and China, who are its main suppliers. Sanctions imposed by the United States and various European countries have squeezed that supply.
“Trump faces a crafty, experienced adversary who seeks to exploit the American president’s impatience to coerce Ukraine into signing away what Russia could not achieve with force”
President Donald Trump believed he could get the Ukrainians to trade land for peace. In the lofty heights of international relations theory, which could have been possible. However, even if Trump were to convince Ukrainians, Ukraine would have ended up with having neither peace nor land.
Moreover, it is unlikely that Ukraine would have agreed to such a deal. It would not only leave 20 percent of its country under enemy occupation but also leave the door open for another war to break out with similar ambitions. It would entail atrocities in torture chambers and summary executions. It would also mean stolen Ukrainian children and their stolen futures.
“Ukraine’s fate — whether as a sovereign state or a geopolitical sacrifice — hinges not on declarations, but on sustained support and collective resolve”
The US has already ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine and it also pressured Ukraine into proposing a 30-day ceasefire. The Trump administration is presenting Ukraine with two worse choices: either Kyiv accepts an American peace plan that rewards Russia for invading Ukrainian territory, or the US will abandon its efforts to broker an end to the war.
The hope of joining NATO is a central part of Ukraine’s plan to secure its future within the European Union. It is unlikely that Ukraine will join the alliance during the war because it would put NATO’s members in direct conflict with Russia.
It is also becoming clear that Trump seems more concerned with sealing any deal at all with Putin. He seems unconcerned about what the specific contents of that deal may be or the consequences it holds for Ukraine.
Given Trump fascination with fame and high stature, the symbolism of signing such deal would be an immaculate achievement for him. And he may have hoped it might nudge him closer to winning the Nobel peace prize.
As the war’s three-year mark is crossed, Ukraine simply cannot overcome Russia’s structural advantages of people, economy, and land even with help from its Western partners. Russia has a larger population and can draft more men to fight; its economy was ten times the size of Ukraine’s before the war. Ukraine’s cumulative losses, which some estimates put at half a trillion dollars, and its smaller size makes it difficult — if not impossible — for it to effectively target Russian military infrastructure.
Russia is now gaining ground on the battlefield, holding a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, with its nuclear arsenal looming as a threat. Ukraine’s partners the United States, other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Japan, and South Korea are not joining the fight. Ukraine is reaching the limit of what it can accomplish alone.
It has become widely accepted that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia. In less than six months, the prevailing narrative has shifted from achieving victory to avoiding defeat.
In 2022 as the Ukrainian army was progressively advancing, European aspirations were to regain all of Russia-occupied land and push back the adversary deep into its own territory. There even was mood to reprimand Russia for starting the war. However, today such aspirations seem too far-fetched.
The conversation among Ukraine’s supporters has evolved to ending the war on terms that would prevent Russia from achieving total victory. The question now is how to get Russia to agree to a ceasefire and negotiate an end to a war it is currently winning.
A peculiarity of the crisis is that, even though no one in NATO thinks Ukraine is fit to join the alliance soon, the body cannot be seen to close its “open-door” policy in the face of Russian threats. Some European diplomats think the circle could be squared if Ukraine itself were to declare its neutrality, as Austria and Finland did after the second world war. The prospect of long-term Ukrainian neutrality after the war could bring Russia to the table.
Asked about “Finlandization,” Emmanuel Macron let slip that it was “one model on the table” but insisted that creative negotiators would have to “invent something new.” Russian diplomats have said they might entertain the idea.
Three years after the war began, Russia is weakened, Ukraine is devastated, but a resolution is in sight.
A document known as the Istanbul Communiqué was drafted, under which Ukraine would accept permanent neutrality, abandon its NATO ambitions, and accept drastic cuts to the size of its armed forces. In exchange Kyiv would be offered security assurances by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: Britain, France, the US, Russia, and China.
Kyiv, meanwhile, has demonstrated that it is no longer on the back foot and that it is far from being defeated. In military terms, Ukraine is indeed outnumbered. It has some 900,000 regular troops compared to Russia’s 1.3 million, excluding equipment. Russia has a 10:1 superiority in aircraft and artillery, 5:1 in tanks and far greater disparities in terms of missiles and rockets.
Ukrainian forces continue to face the daunting challenge of holding their positions against a numerically superior enemy while contending with dwindling supplies of Western weapons. Military commanders acknowledge that sustained Western support could help Ukraine prevent significant Russian advances this summer. But this involves convincing skeptical politicians in Washington and European capitals that Ukraine can still prevail with continued backing.
European countries have contributed almost €62 billion towards arming the Ukrainians military since the war began, a considerable sum that has helped Kyiv sustain a formidable defense against a far larger adversary.
As both sides prepare for what may prove to be a decisive phase of the conflict, the coming months could determine the fate of the war. It is to be seen whether Ukraine maintains its territorial integrity or is forced to accept a peace settlement that leaves the country partitioned and vulnerable to future Russian aggression. With much at stake, the summer of 2025 may well become the ultimate test of Ukraine’s resilience and the West’s commitment to its defense.
Ukraine certainly does not have the capacity to drive Russia out of its land this year. But it is hanging on. It may find itself holding the upper hand by next year as European aid begins to flow to replace the US military support, which has come to a halt presently.
Since Putin’s invasion in February 2022, Washington has provided Ukraine some $74 billion in military aid. That includes cutting-edge equipment such as Patriot air defense systems, which are Ukraine’s only effective defense against Russian ballistic missiles. In addition, Ukraine has also received Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and HIMARS missiles, long-range M777 artillery, tanks, armored vehicles, and millions of artillery rounds.
Donald Trump has provided no new military support this year. About $3.85 billion from previous allocations remains unspent but since then military aid has dipped to zero.
Amid the escalating conflict, diplomatic efforts have faced significant hurdles. Ukraine has expressed willingness to accept a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire, aiming to create a window for peace negotiations.
However, Russia’s response has been tepid with President Vladimir Putin emphasizing that any cessation of hostilities should lead to a lasting peace by addressing root causes of the conflict.
In four years, the conflict has already resulted in over 200,000 deaths, and casualties are about three to four times that. Western estimates put the number of casualties at half a million. Some 700,000 men are fighting for their lives on the front lines.
Millions have been displaced. Ukraine’s economy has been devastated, and the country faces a demographic time bomb following the departure of so many women and children.
What is surprising is the absence of serious peace efforts even as hundreds of thousands perish in the heart of Europe.
In his first one hundred days, Donald Trump has thrown entire western foreign policy into utmost confusion. The US administration’s stance has also been evolving. While initially advocating for a swift resolution, recent correspondences suggest a shift towards encouraging Ukraine to negotiate directly with Russia. Moreover, the leaked details of the Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine suggest that the US could sideline its European partners and make concessions to Russia to accelerate the negotiation process.
The US president’s realignment of the country’s foreign policy, which includes a shift away from the close alliance with Kyiv, has unsettled US allies across Europe. It also raised concerns about the potential implications for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Though on the surface it might appear as if the US and Europe are somewhat unified on Ukraine issue, the truth is the former is willing to go beyond what the latter will tolerate. And the latter is now at risk of playing the spoiler.
“Europe must now single-handedly take on the duty of securing peace in the continent, without any help from the American partners who had been there for the past eight decades.”
European officials face a dilemma as Trump ramps up his efforts to secure peace between Russia and Ukraine.
An earlier US proposal, presented to allies, mentioning the terms, including lifting sanctions on Russia, and putting Ukraine out of NATO list, contradicts preceding US administration’s support to Ukraine. With the proposal, the support extended by Trump’s predecessor in Kyiv two years ago turns to dust.
European officials deem the proposal as too favorable to Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. But President Trump and Vice President JD Vance had stressed it as the ultimate one, and that the US was increasingly prepared to walk away.
If the US walks away, it puts Europe in a difficult spot. The US departure from the alliance would jeopardize the inviolability of NATO’s Article 5’s collective defense. And safeguarding Ukraine’s existence will solely depend on European security guarantees without the US.
European allies of the US have been trying to convince President Trump of the virtues of a shared approach toward ending the war in Ukraine, to enhance leverage on both Moscow and Kyiv and to preserve European security. European officials and analysts say the key principle of European security is at stake. For over 50 years, the international border, however it was drawn post-World War II should not be changed by force.
Analysts say the European effort to convince Washington that Moscow was standing in the way of a deal, and not President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, appears to have failed. Trump may indeed decide to give up on the whole problem, as he did with North Korea in his first term — when the deal he had envisaged proved impossible. For weeks, the continent has been dreading this eventuality or inevitability as an ailing patient might dread a terminal prognosis.
The big question is what happens next. If Trump does walk away, will he end intelligence-sharing? Will he unilaterally lift sanctions? Most vital, will he at least let Europe buy crucial weapons from America, especially Patriot air defense systems, to give to Ukraine? More often than so, no one has a clue.
The situation seems to lead Europe to act independently and finally stand on its own feet after 80 years of reliance on the US. It is going through a traumatizing phase of separation with its longtime partner.
America’s post-war partnership with Europe was always more than a pragmatic alliance. Europeans embraced America’s power, its culture, and its ideas, and came to take its presence for granted. This embrace was always matched by complacent policymaking through cycles of crisis: transnational terrorism, migration flows, populist political upsurges, and Brexit.
Faced with the largest land war on its soil since 1945, London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels cannot once again take solace in a US commander-in-chief reared in the shadow of the Cold War. Europe is firmly linked to the architecture that undergirds that conflict. Yet these European countries say they are prepared to keep supporting Ukraine, should the Americans walk away.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked a turning point in European and global geopolitics, challenging the foundations of the post-Cold War security order.
For the first time in decades, European leaders face a US commander-in-chief who does not care for Cold War-era pieties. That could leave the continent on its own for the first time since World War II. The security architecture that Europe has relied on for generations is gone and is not returning.
Experts warn that Moscow is expanding its military footprint across northwestern Russia. This suggests calculated Russian move to bolster the region, especially considering Finland and Sweden’s recent accession to NATO. “During 2024”, noted a recent Danish intelligence assessment, Russian rearmament “changed character from reconstruction to an intensified military build-up”. The goal is to be able “to fight on an equal footing with NATO forces.
In the east as well, Russia’s military buildup is alarming. At the same time, traditional defense ties with the US fray under Trump. Russia may not be about to invade other parts of Europe. But it will try to gain sway by redoubling its cyber-attacks, influence, assassinations, and sabotage operations. If Putin senses weakness, he could seek to split apart NATO by seizing a small piece of territory and daring the allies to respond. He could be ready for that in two to five years. This may sound like a long time. But in military planning, it is a blink of an eye. Europe’s deterrence depends on understanding the threat Putin poses.
Nearly four years into the conflict, the European Union today faces a variety of scenarios that could redefine not only Ukraine’s future, but also the EU’s role and influence on the international stage.
One of the few cards Europe can play without Trump is to threaten Russia with seizing its state bank assets. It can put forth this threat anytime now or in the future whenever Russia breaches terms of a ceasefire.
The immediate priority for Europe now, and the Munich Conference, is how best to support Ukraine. But the challenges go far beyond that. The world is closely watching to see if Europe’s leaders can unify to shore up defense at a time of political and economic uncertainty. Even if they do, it is far from clear that it will be enough to deter an aggressive and badly mauled Russia without the United States.
Europe is buying more arms, but countries are squabbling over arms contracts. Data released by Swedish think-tank SIPRI point out that NATO’s defense spending rose to $68 billion i.e., an increase of 19% in the year 2022-23. The SIPRI data excludes US contribution to NATO for the year. Though European countries are increasing defense spending, there are worries: it is still too little.
By offering a ceasefire himself, Zelenskyy has squashed Trump’s claim that the Ukrainian President wants endless war. Reaction in Europe was swift and unanimous, with leaders rushing to social media to offer their support for Ukraine and Zelensky.
However, deploying troops to Ukraine and pledging to defend the country would obviously be a far bigger, more expensive task. It would also require Washington’s assurance to protect Ukraine and its European partners in the event of a Russian violation of any truce — the very thing the Trump administration wants to avoid, given the risks of conflict escalating into a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia.
If the Europeans had an alternative plan they could offer, then perhaps all of this would make sense. But they do not. Instead, they are sticking to vague, repeated talking points about supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, icing out Putin as long as is required, and holding out for a “just peace.” That all sounds well and good if it was not for the fact that a “just peace” as Zelensky defines it a full and complete Russian troop withdrawal is unrealistic.
Meanwhile, Europe’s generous military and financial aid to Ukraine has drained national budgets, stretching resources at a time when European economies are already struggling with inflation, debt, and slow growth. And European leaders still must prepare voters for the sacrifices ahead.
Meanwhile, Ukraine and Europe have presented an alternative ceasefire document that, unlike Trump’s plan, makes no territorial concessions to Russia nearly four years into the invasion in Ukraine. The question is whether they are willing and able to back it with continued military effort if Russia and the US reject it.
In European capitals, leaders fear that Trump could cut a deal with Putin that accedes to his maximalist demands and sells out Ukraine’s interests in his haste to end the fighting.
With the Trump administration evidently willing to reset relations with Russia and not viewing European security as a core US national interest, the key question is whether Europe will step up. Germany is leading the charge, but is Europe willing to put its money where its mouth is?
Amid a new global conflict of ideals, one cannot tell where America stands. If the mission of defending freedom and democracy solely falls on Europe, it must be ready to take it on.
If President Trump takes Ukraine as just another crisis — whether to solve or not – or as an obstacle to a normalized diplomatic and business relationship with President Putin, Europeans see the future of Ukraine as fundamental.
For decades, Europe has affirmed the need to assume more responsibility for its own security, if not become completely autonomous and independent from the United States. Doing so will require addressing two equally pressing challenges: ensuring Europe can finally defend itself and securing a sustainable peace for a sovereign Ukraine.
Europe must now single-handedly take on the duty of securing peace in the continent, without any help from the American partners who had been there for the past eight decades. And if European leaders need any further evidence that they must safeguard their own future security needs, then the Ukrainian “peace deal” devised by hawks in Trump’s administration should give them all the persuasion they require.
But could Europe handle Ukraine file on its own even if it wanted to despite hurried pledges by Britain and France to increase defense spending in the past few days? One cannot help but be skeptical.
Donald Trump has all the cards: over Russia, and over the nations that could pressure it into a real peace. He must play them wisely. The future of Ukraine – and global security – depends on it.
If President Putin does not now agree to the proposed ceasefire, the next step will be to see if Trump is ready to go along with Europe’s tightened sanctions. An even tougher embargo by the West may not make much difference to Russia’s war effort but might help indicate Trump’s long-term intentions on the war. The coming days will make it a lot clearer whose side he is on.
Months after US-Ukraine relations crashed over the ill-fated Zelensky-Trump Oval Office meeting; Kyiv may be able to harbor realistic hopes of new US arms exports. If these deliveries transpire, they could further slow Russia’s offensive advance and force Putin to pursue peace on less advantageous terms. A worrying prospect for the Kremlin.
If Ukraine can withstand the coming months, the pressure may begin to shift – potentially forcing Russia to the negotiating table not from a position of strength, but on terms more palatable to Kyiv.
Despite advances on the battlefield, pressures are growing on Moscow. If Ukraine can weather this summer, and assuming there are no diplomatic breakthroughs, Russia faces two longer-term constraints on its ability to sustain the war at this level of intensity. On the military front, it is running short of armor, with some analysts saying it is close to depleting its Soviet era tank reserve.
A greater threat to Putin’s war effort may lie in the economy. Defense spending now accounts for 40 percent of government expenditure. Drawing from the country’s National Wealth Fund has helped stimulate growth – for now. Yet the pivot to a war economy, coupled with sanctions, is creating distortions.
Russia’s economy is not yet on the verge of collapse. But ordinary Russians are feeling the strain. Harsher sanctions, if approved by Trump, combined with intensified Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure, could deepen the pressure.
The Kremlin is projected to allocate 6.3 percent of its GDP to defense this year — the highest level since the Cold War — yet still far below what would typically indicate a country fully mobilized for war. By contrast, Ukraine spent 34 percent of its GDP on defense last year, while British military spending surpassed 50 percent of GDP during the Second World War. For now, Russia has the edge on the battlefield. But its war machine is straining – economically, industrially, and demographically.
Putin faces a dilemma. On the one hand, he cannot afford to annoy the infamous mercurial Donald Trump. The Kremlin has not forgotten that upon entering the White House in 2017 Trump turned out to be far harsher on Russia than Barack Obama had ever been. Trump sanctioned Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and ratcheted up the quantity and lethality of the arms America supplied to Ukraine.
On the other hand, Putin believes that time is on his side. His troops are winning, slowly and bloodily, on the ground. So Trump now needs to propel him towards a proper deal by applying a very large stick. Putin has once again shown that he responds only to forceful measures, not diplomatic overtures.
A key point on West and Russia’s relations was made by Georgy Arbatov, a political scientist and advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and founder and director of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Science. He said to a group of senior US officials in 1987, “We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”
This is how one can understand the West’s persistent rebuff to the efforts of Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Putin to establish non-adversarial relations with western states. It needs Russia as an enemy to provide internal unity. But on the other hand, it also needs Russia as a cooperative partner showing suitable deference to the West, especially over the coming decades as China grows stronger.
Meanwhile, China is following Ukraine crisis and the US and NATO strategy and recalculating its confidence in the decline of the West. That recalculation may prompt Beijing to forge closer ties with Moscow. However, Beijing would not want to help the Kremlin to the point where Russia could challenge its own design over the Eurasian landmass, which is well underway in the form of the infrastructure alliances created by the giant Belt and Road Initiative.
If the fate of Taiwan is as the late Donald Rumsfeld might say a known unknown, the attitude of Trump administration towards Ukraine is an unknown unknown. The US president could yet swing either way.
Still, it is more likely than not that Ukraine will find itself facing an ultimatum to either sign a Trump brokered peace deal dictated by Putin or lose US intelligence and logistical support permanently. How would the map of Ukraine change after such a one-sided ceasefire?
Putin claims five provinces Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. The last three are still only partially occupied by the Russians. Agreeing to withdraw Ukrainian forces from these regions would increase the Russian-occupied area from about 20pc to roughly 25 percent of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. That might sound like a sacrifice worth making to stop the slaughter, but it would inevitably deprive Kyiv of yet more economic resources and its fortified frontlines.
Expected Outcome of Any Peace Deal
Wars have their own pace, characteristics, and logic. Halting them entirely is an epochal event—rare, complex, and often elusive. Vladimir Lenin once observed, “There are decades where nothing happens; there are weeks where decades happen.” The diplomatic whirlwind surrounding President Trump suggests the Bolshevik was not far off. Yet any peace deal that fails to prevent another war from reigniting soon after its signing is not worth pursuing.
As the fourth summer of war unfolds, Ukraine stands at a critical juncture: battlefield pressures are mounting, U.S. support is eroding, and Europe is being forced into strategic adulthood. The broader message is clear—transatlantic guarantees are no longer a given with Trump in the White House.
Ukraine’s fate—whether as a sovereign state or a geopolitical sacrifice—hinges not on declarations, but on sustained support and collective resolve. If Europe seeks to avoid a Russian-imposed peace, it must take the lead, assert its autonomy, and move beyond a supporting role.
Will Europe rise as a strategic actor? Will it fill the vacuum left by Washington’s retreat—or leave it to be filled by rivals with competing interests?
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