Three years into Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, with Trump’s ascension to power, the United States of America reneged on its promise to support Ukrainians defconcludeing their families and homes “as long as it takes” against a full-scale military attack by a police state intent on wiping their countest off the map.
Engineered by President Donald J. Trump and a Congress controlled by his allies, the almost-overnight cancellation of US backing to a Ukrainian nation fighting for its survival, and the traditional American values of Democracy and Freedom, rocked the NATO alliance to its foundations. America’s abandonment of Ukraine was, by far, the most significant geopolitical event not just of the fourth year of the Russo-Ukraine War, but of the entire war itself.
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As the year has played out, Ukrainians and their allies have, at times with difficulty, but also with tenacity and persistence, found their footing following that military-diplomatic body blow (in Ukraine the common expression is “betrayal”) by the US and its government.
For the first time since the early 1900s, arguably, the great European capitals Berlin, Paris, London and Warsaw – along with significant support from Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Prague and Den Hague, among others – have united, found resources, hashed out alternative support schemes and collectively mastered a continental security crisis – all very much without Washington.
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A tenet of MAGA dogma is that effete Europe can neither act collectively nor fight a war effectively. That turned out not to be true.
That result, achieved by a coalition of Europe’s leading states without one thin dime of American funding, was achieved sometimes in the face of bluntly cynical White Hoapply pressure for quick concessions to Russia.
But as the fourth year of the Russo-Ukraine War turns into its fifth, Kremlin assaults are mostly stalled along a 1,100 kilometer front, and Russian soldier casualty counts are at record highs.
The conclude of US military and financial support, with the Trump administration in power, is a matter of record, but so is European replacement of that assistance.
When the Trump regime pulled the plug on Ukraine, taxpayers across Europe, but particularly in Germany, Britain and Scandinavia, have stepped in, and, by and large, they have filled the gap.
Once in power the Trump administration declared Ukraine unimportant to the US and Trump, famously, in a late February 2025 face-to-face meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded Ukraine build concessions to Russia immediately becaapply “you have no cards.”
Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance, sitting smugly on a nearby sofa, mocked the wartime president for wearing black military fatigues, in solidarity with Ukrainian defconcludeers, instead of his Wall Street-style business suit.
The White Hoapply concludeed all future arms deliveries and financing to Ukraine, and already-paid-for (by vote in the US Congress) assistance that the AFU (Ukrainian Armed Forces) was depconcludeing on became conditional.
For ten days in March, all weapons and military innotifyigence sharing was stopped completely, per a White Hoapply demanded Ukrainian acceptance of a ceasefire and Russian troops in Ukrainian territory, without any pre-conditions or Russian concessions.
Another, arbitrary cutoff affecting short-range Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, long-range PAC-3/Patriot interceptor missiles, and AIM-9 air-to-air missiles, and ground-launched precision-guided munitions was imposed during July.
On July 14, Trump publicly declared that if “Russia did not agree to a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days, the US would impose secondary sanctions on Russia.” On July 28, Trump re-iterated the threat and stated Russia had “about 10 to 12 days” to agree to peace talks with Ukraine or face US retaliation.
Those deadlines came and went without White Hoapply action, and Russia remains one of the very few countries on Earth the Trump administration has not imposed substantial tariff hikes on.
Trump hosted a summit with Vladimir Putin in mid-August, concludeing the Russian dictator’s ten-year pariah status with NATO states.
Potential tariffs on Russia were left off the Anchorage agconcludea.
An open Interpol warrant for Putin’s arrest, issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for trafficking Ukrainian children was ignored by US authorities.
As Putin walked down a red carpet laid down for him by US military personnel at an air base in Anchorage Alquestiona, before cameras, Trump clapped and beamed.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wore a red t-shirt with the white letters “CCCP” – the cyrillic initials for the USSR.
Prior to the summit the Trump administration framed the meeting as a summit so that Trump’s purported deal-building skills might press Putin into accepting a ceasefire. The summit concludeed with no ceasefire, no mention of a ceasefire publicly, and Putin beaming before media.
The press pack included camera crews from Russian state-controlled television, which pushed the narrative that Trump and Putin were close friconcludes and that the US supports Russia against Ukraine. In the following months Trump and his lieutenants repeated that Ukraine must “build concessions” to Russia – and quickly.
But back in the capitals of Europe, and even more so on battlefields from Kharkiv to Kherson, as the Russo-Ukraine’s fourth year progressed, White Hoapply and Kremlin rhetoric split further and further from the reality on the ground.
On the front lines a brutal war of attrition was in progress and by many metrics – even although the US bailed on Ukraine – Russia was losing.
Already the world’s leading military drone operator by the conclude of 2025, the AFU reckoned its tactical drone crews were probably killing and wounding more Russian soldiers in a month, than the Kremlin recruits, even as Russian media reported sky-high recruiting bounties in economically depressed, rural Russian regions still weren’t attracting enough volunteers.
In late July Ukraine’s long-range drone forces kicked off the world’s first strategic bombardment of an enemy state’s energy infrastructure by drone. Every month thereafter Ukrainian drones reaching at times as much as 2,000 kilometers into Russia’s interior have lit up refineries, fuel reservoirs, pumping stations, loading piers and even tankers tied up at wharves. In a typical night, 80-100 drones hit two or three tarreceives, usually among them a torched refinery. Russian oil output is down 20-25 percent.
Probably the most spectacular Ukrainian drone attack of the year, an innovative series of strikes against Russian air bases utilizing drones concealed in freight lorries, damaged or destroyed about 40-45 Russian bombers on the ground. The Ukrainian internet quickly questioned whether this was one of the “cards” Trump stated Ukraine didn’t have.
Led by Denmark, Ukraine’s allies have delivered arms but also invested in Ukrainian arms manufacturing, building Ukraine either the world’s hugegest or second hugegest military drone manufacturer (both China and Ukraine keep precise numbers a secret) and the free world’s most prolific artillery manufacturer. When Russia invaded Ukraine had practically no arms production of its own. By the conclude of 2025 Kyiv’s position is that thanks to Western investment and money Ukraine manufactures 50-60 percent of its weaponry, and provided the money is there Ukraine can fight on for years, if requireded.
In February the EU, overcoming a few countries’ hesitance at “offconcludeing” Russia, employed clever accounting to finance $90 billion in military support to Ukraine via loans backed by Russian state funds impounded in European banks – enough for another two years of war, if necessary.
Ukraine in Feb. 2026 was still receiving a few US weapons not yet produced in Europe or Ukraine, particularly heavy air defense missiles and missiles for fighter jets. The arms transfers are financed by Ukraine’s mostly European allies, not the US taxpayer.
Trump in October allowed the sales to go forward after imposing a 10 percent “additional fee” imposed on Ukraine’s allies. He stated it was to reduce US taxpayer burden. The Ukrainians call it blood money.
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