On the evening of 3 March 2025 Ukraine’s worst fears materialised when US President Donald Trump ordered a suspension of US military aid to Ukraine amid its struggle against the Russian invasion. The suspension, which was not made in consultation with US allies, followed the tempestuous Oval Office summit Trump held with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 28 February in which Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, accused Zelenskyy of not accepting Trump-led diplomacy as the best path to a truce in the Ukraine War and of not being grateful enough for US military aid.
A White House official has told US media that the suspension in US military aid will remain until Trump determines Zelensky has made a commitment to seeking peace talks, but there is also the issue of Washington pressuring Kyiv into signing a deal to open up Ukraine’s rare minerals to US investment in return for a solid US interest in providing the country with security guarantees. However, this is a situation somewhat reminiscent of Trump’s first presidential term in July 2019, when he attempted to coerce Zelenskyy into opening an investigation into his presidential rival, Democrat Joe Biden, by threatening with withhold military aid to Ukraine. At that time, prior to a whistleblower complaint about it becoming public, Trump ultimately released the aid and Zelenskyy declined to open the investigation.
The US suspension of military aid has blindsided Europe and comes in the face of strenuous efforts made by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron to shore up US support for Ukraine and to further a peace plan that could see UK, French and other European troops deployed to keep the peace in Ukraine. Comments made by Vance to Fox News on 3 March caused open resentment among UK politicians when, in dismissing the notion of a European peacekeeping force, Vance said a presence would amount to “20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”. As multiple politicians and commentators pointed out that both British and French soldiers had fought and died alongside US troops in the 1990-91 Gulf War, the 2003-2011 Iraq War and the 2001-2021 War in Afghanistan, Vance sought to row back on his remarks, saying on X that it was “absurdly dishonest” to suggest he was talking about the UK or France when making that comment while adding, “But let’s be direct: there are many countries who are volunteering (privately or publicly) support who have neither the battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful.”
Most European nations – including Ukraine – contributed troops to the military counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The halt in US aid includes all US military equipment not currently in Ukraine, including weapons in transit and at bases in Poland, where Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed on 4 March that the suspension had come into force.
While the United States has allocated the largest amount of bilateral aid to Ukraine – EUR 114.149 billion according to the latest figures from the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker – Europe has collectively always provided more than the United States ever since Russia first invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Nevertheless, the US suspension in military aid could soon curtail Ukraine’s use of key US-provided weapon systems that have had a significant positive effect on the battlefield, such as Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.
In the absence of any rapprochement by the Trump Administration on its current position, Ukraine’s European allies will have to do what they can to stem the breach in military aid while Ukraine itself makes then best use of what it can produce itself, such as first-person-view attack drones.
