How Ukraine plans to survive when the US steps back

Telegraph

04-05-2025

On a sunny afternoon near the eastern front, a Ukrainian artillery crew show off their stockpile for a D-30 howitzer.
The ammunition is 152mm, Soviet-calibre, but the manufacturers are not. The shells are brand new.
When US deliveries froze and the front lines wavered in winter 2024, Ukraine had already been producing, purchasing and sourcing weapons – sometimes on its own, sometimes with the backing of its allies – preparing a back-up plan for the day that vital American military aid stopped flowing.
With the last US packages signed off by Joe Biden expected to expire before summer, that eventuality is on the horizon.
Many see the long-delayed minerals deal signed this week between Kyiv and Washington as a potential route to unlock fresh US weapons.
But the agreement offered no American security or aid guarantees.
And although the Trump administration informed Congress of its intention to approve arms exports worth at least $50 million (£37 million) to Ukraine on Wednesday, Ukraine and its European allies know that American assistance will not last forever.
Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at the Kyiv-based National Institute for Strategic Studies, told The Telegraph: 'I guess there's one thing people miss when discussing US blackmail over aid right now.
'In all plausible scenarios, assistance will eventually end – even if Ukraine accepts the US peace framework. So what would be the point of agreeing to such a deal if there would be no aid left?'
If the American weapons don't start flowing again, Ukraine will face serious challenges.
Exactly how severe remains the great unknown. It is a complex equation that Volodymyr Zelensky and his aides have been working to solve since 2023.
Following its failed summer counter-offensive and Russia's push from Avdiivka, Kyiv made a decision: to bet on itself.
It laid the first foundations of a strategy built for survival. Unlike its Western partners, Ukraine set its sights on the long game.
A glimpse of future warfare
'The battlefield evolves every six months – that's what makes this war different from others,' says Oleksandr Yarmak, a sergeant in the Ukrainian army's unmanned systems forces. 'That speed of innovation gives us the edge over the enemy.'
Simple and complex at the same time: the very same factors that make victory difficult also prevent defeat. The American guns and the shells remain vital, but no longer dictate the fight. Drones have taken much of their place.
Last year, Ukraine produced more than two million FPVs and thousands more designed to strike high-value targets – including ammunition stockpiles and oil depots – at distances of up to 1,700km (1,050 miles), roughly the span between London and Warsaw.
Using its new arsenal of unmanned vehicles, Ukraine is building a nine-mile wide kill zone along the front line, crippling Russian logistics and slowing their advance.
It is one of the reasons why Vladimir Putin 's assault troops have recently stalled in eastern Ukraine.
It is a glimpse of future warfare. The growing robot army operates on the ground, in the sea and air, is able to strike, mine, evacuate, supply and even be used as a simple repeater to extend other machines' range.
Units like the 13th Brigade of the National Guard have carried out drone-only assaults on the northern border with Russia.
Money, money, money
Kyiv's second great dilemma is how to keep funding its war effort.
In 2024, around 30 per cent of Ukraine's defence production was funded by the United States, another 30 per cent by Europe, and the remainder by Ukraine itself, according to Mr Zelensky.
With the White House proving increasingly unpredictable, Kyiv and its allies need to step up.
Brussels is prioritising the search for Patriot launchers and missiles. Yet, the Trump administration is obstructing military purchases, an EU official told The Telegraph.
The alternatives are French and Italian systems that need better radar to protect cities and critical infrastructure from Russian attacks.
But air defences alone will not be enough to win the war.
For the first time since the full-scale invasion began, Ukraine is facing a situation of overfunding – with more money available than real opportunities to buy.
Allied countries decided to solve the problem through the 'Danish model': directly financing Ukraine's domestic defence production.
One of the latest announcements came in early April, when £850 million from the profits of frozen Russian assets was earmarked to keep Ukraine's defence sector running.
Cheaper, faster and free of intermediaries, the model allows Kyiv to scale up domestic production at a speed no Western supplier could match.
And the impact is already being felt.
At least 18 of the 154 Bohdana howitzers produced last year were funded by Copenhagen under this scheme.
Recent data suggest Kyiv is now producing 36 a month, three times more. Eighty-five per cent of their components are already manufactured in Ukraine.
The third pillar of Ukraine's strategy is to bring foreign defence firms directly into the country, turning the battlefield into a workshop.
Britain's BAE Systems is already repairing armoured vehicles and howitzers on the ground.
Germany's Rheinmetall, which produces globally more 155mm shells than the entire United States, also plans to open new facilities in Ukraine to maintain Leopard tanks and German artillery systems.
Andrii Koropatva, the chief executive of Ancestor, a defence start-up developing swarm drone software, said: 'If you're not in Ukraine, you don't exist.'
Similar deals are being signed almost weekly in Kyiv.
Building the arsenal of the free world
Yet these steps often slip beneath the radar, overshadowed by Donald Trump 's moves. They are part of a coherent strategy Ukraine has been building since 2023: to become 'the arsenal of the free world'.
But critical vulnerabilities remain. The lack of US aid would hit Ukraine hardest in two key areas: intelligence sharing and air defence.
'There is no Ukrainian substitute for either. Europe cannot fully compensate, but it could take the risk of using up more of its stocks,' says Mr Bielieskov.