Ukrainians expressed alarm and apprehension on Tuesday at a US decision to pause military aid that is critical to their fighting Russia’s invasion, as a rift deepens between Kyiv and Washington.
Days after an explosive meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump ordered the assistance to be halted in a bid to pressure Kyiv to engage in peace talks with Russia.
Officials in Kyiv said they were grateful for vital US help in the war and want to keep working with Washington. The country’s prime minister, though, said Ukraine still wants security guarantees to be part of any peace deal and will not recognise Russian occupation of any Ukrainian land.
Ukraine and its allies are concerned Mr Trump is pushing for a quick ceasefire that will favour Russia, which Kyiv says cannot be trusted to honour truces.
Ukraine, which depends heavily on foreign help to hold back Russia’s full-scale invasion that began on February 24 2022 has feared that aid could be stopped since Mr Trump took office.
US-made Patriot air defence missile systems, for example, are a pivotal part of protecting Ukraine. Just as vital is US intelligence assistance, which has allowed Ukraine to track Russian troop movements and select targets.
“I feel betrayed, but this feeling is not really deep for some reason. I was expecting something like that from Trump’s side,” said a Ukrainian soldier fighting in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a daring military incursion in August 2024 to improve its hand in negotiations.
The soldier spoke by phone to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.
On the front line, where Ukraine is struggling to fend off the much larger and better-equipped Russian army, another soldier said the US decision would allow further battlefield gains for Moscow.
“War is very pragmatic,” he told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity in compliance with military regulations.
“If we have weapons, enough ammunition, infantry, armoured vehicles and aviation, great. If not, then we’re done,” he said.
He recalled a seven-month delay in US aid that ended in April 2024 but opened a door for the Russian capture of the strategically important city of Avdiivka.
The pause in US aid is not expected to have an immediate impact on the battlefield. Ukrainian forces have slowed Russian advances along the roughly 1,000-km (600-mile) front line, especially in the fiercely contested Donetsk region some 700km (400 miles) east of Kyiv.
The Russian onslaught has been costly in troops and armour but has not brought a strategically significant breakthrough for the Kremlin.
Olena Fedorova, 46, a resident of the southern port city of Odesa, said she hoped Mr Trump’s decision would be temporary because “we really need help”.
US support is vital because Europe cannot fully provide what Ukraine needs in air defence systems, said Ukrainian politician Yehor Chernov.
“As a result, this will lead to an increase in the number of casualties among civilians,” he said.
The US-Ukraine relationship has taken a downturn since Mr Trump took office and his team launched bilateral talks with Russia.
Mr Trump says he wants to get traction for peace negotiations. He vowed during his campaign to settle the war in 24 hours, but later changed that timeframe and voiced hope that peace could be negotiated in six months.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said US help is “vital” and has saved “perhaps tens of thousands” of civilian and military lives.
But he emphasised at a Kyiv news conference that any peace agreement must be “on Ukraine’s terms, as the victim country”.
Ukraine wants “concrete security guarantees” from Washington, European countries and Group of Seven leading industrialised nations, he said. Giving up territory to Russia, which occupies nearly 20% of Ukraine, “is not possible” under the UN Charter, he said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal speaks during a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
He repeated Mr Zelensky’s position that Ukraine is still ready to sign a lucrative minerals deal with Mr Trump that could be the first step toward a ceasefire.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Washington’s decision could act as a spur to a peace agreement.
“The US has been the chief supplier in this war so far,” Mr Peskov said. “If the US suspends these supplies, it will make the best contribution to peace.”
Poland’s Foreign Ministry said the US had not consulted with or informed Nato countries before announcing the pause.
Russia will likely try to use the halt in supplies to extend its territorial gains and strengthen its position in prospective peace talks.
Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency quoted Andrei Kartapolov, a retired general who chairs the defence committee in the lower house of parliament, as saying Ukraine would exhaust its current ammunition reserves within months.
“We need to keep up the pressure and continue to target their bases and depots with long-range precision weapons to destroy the stockpiles,” he said.
Ukraine’s European allies, meanwhile, reaffirmed their commitment to Kyiv.
The chief of the European Union’s executive proposed an 800 billion-euro ((£662 billion)) plan to bolster defences of EU nations and provide Ukraine with military muscle.
The UK government, which has been leading European efforts to keep Mr Trump from pushing to end the war on terms that could favour Moscow, said in a statement that it remains “absolutely committed to securing a lasting peace in Ukraine”.
Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defence think tank, said Washington’s move could encourage Russia to ask for more Ukrainian concessions, including demilitarisation and neutrality.
“This decision is not about economics. It is driven fundamentally by Trump’s view that Russia is willing to do a peace deal, and only Ukraine is the obstacle,” Mr Chalmers said. “But there is no evidence that Russia would be prepared to accept a deal, and what that would be.”
Mr Trump said on Monday he is still interested in signing a deal that would hand over a share of Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals to the US, an agreement that Mr Zelensky has also said he is ready to sign.
“By abruptly halting military assistance to Ukraine, President Trump is hanging Ukrainians out to dry and giving Russia the green light to continue marching west,” said Razom for Ukraine, a Ukrainian advocacy group.
It urged the White House “to immediately reverse course, resume military aid and pressure Putin to end his horrific invasion”.