Ukraine hasn't won over Trump. But it might not need to.

Yahoo

a day ago

President Donald Trump's seemingly infinite patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin may, in fact, have limits.
'Something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform this week, citing the massive recent airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and Putin's desire to conquer 'ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it.'
Trump also took a vague shot at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ('everything out of his mouth causes problems'), and one could point out that Russia has been striking civilian targets in Ukraine and expressing a desire to snuff out Ukraine's political independence since the very beginning of the war.
Trump followed up by telling reporters he is considering imposing new sanctions on Russia and posted, 'if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia,' but told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he is holding off on new sanctions for now.
So it's not as if Trump has had a full and sudden change of heart overnight. But consider that, at the end of February, Trump was publicly dressing down Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, blaming Ukraine for starting the war, and halting all US assistance to the Ukrainian war effort. By that standard, Trump's new tone is still one of several developments that add up to a welcome change of pace for Kyiv.
Even if there are no new measures taken to either support Ukraine or punish Russia, and even if the US 'walks away' from efforts to negotiate a ceasefire, as Vice President JD Vance recently threatened, the events since February still amount to a remarkable diplomatic change of fortune for Ukraine — and probably about as good an outcome as Kyiv could reasonably expect from this administration.
For Ukraine, where cities are still reeling from some of the largest airstrikes since the beginning of the war, and where supplies of much-needed air defense ammunition are running dangerously low, there's obviously no cause for celebration. Hanna Shelest, a Kyiv-based defense analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Vox that despite Trump's changing tone on Putin, his ongoing attacks on Zelenskyy (it's unclear exactly what remarks triggered Trump's ire) indicate that 'we are still in a transactional situation. We have still not been able to dramatically change the approach of the US president.'
Trump, for all his current frustration, clearly still views the conflict in a way that is much more sympathetic to Russia's interests than Joe Biden or many members of his own party. But in terms of actual material support, not much has actually changed since Trump took office.
Because of the time it takes for those contracts to be negotiated and fulfilled, weapons that were ordered in 2022 are only being delivered now.
He has frequently suggested he'd be willing to lift sanctions on Russia as part of a ceasefire agreement, but he has not done so, and in fact, has signed executive orders extending the sanctions that Biden imposed. Many of these sanctions could not be lifted without congressional approval. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently put it, 'When Vladimir Putin woke up this morning, he had the same set of sanctions on him that he's always had since the beginning of this conflict.'
Aside from a week-long pause following the contentious Oval Office meeting, US weapons shipments to Ukraine have continued. In fact, the rate of weapons deliveries actually increased in the early weeks of the Trump administration because of moves the Biden team made to rush aid out the door before leaving office.
The intelligence sharing vital to Ukraine's targeting systems has also continued, as has — despite Elon Musk's threats — the Ukrainian military's access to SpaceX's Starlink satellite network.
Congress has allocated two types of funding for aid to Ukraine: The first pays for weapons to be transferred to Ukraine for US military stocks. That aid has been almost exhausted, experts say. The second provides funds for Ukraine to buy its own weapons from American manufacturers. Because of the time it takes for those contracts to be negotiated and fulfilled, weapons that were ordered in 2022 are only being delivered now. The last items from contracts signed in 2024 might not be delivered until 2028.
The upshot, as Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, puts it, is that 'the overall military aid being delivered is relatively high and will stay there for quite a while.'
This White House and this Congress are very unlikely to allocate new funding for aid to Ukraine, but perhaps others could fill the gap. European governments are reportedly warming to the idea of purchasing weapons from American manufacturers. So far, these governments have preferred to buy from their own companies, but there are a number of systems — such as the all-important Patriot air-defense missiles — that only the US can provide.
Ukraine's defense industry is also more self-sufficient than it used to be. The drones that are now inflicting the majority of the casualties on the front lines in Ukraine are increasingly produced in-country by the country's booming autonomous weapons industry.
It's even possible that Ukraine may benefit somewhat from a more hands-off American approach. For all that the Biden team made clear it would back Ukraine's war effort for as long as it takes, Ukrainian officials sometimes bristled under what they saw as micromanagement from a White House concerned about the risks of conflict escalation with Russia, particularly when it came to long-range strikes into Russian territory.
But according to an announcement from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week, allies including the United States have agreed to lift range restrictions on weapons headed to Ukraine, allowing the Ukrainians more freedom to strike targets deep within Russia.
The two main shifts in US policy that have taken place under Trump have been the US-Ukraine minerals deal and the direct negotiations with Russia. Both have proven less disastrous for Ukraine than they initially appeared.
The original version of the minerals deal presented to Ukraine reportedly required the country to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from the mining of its critical minerals as repayment for past military aid. The deal Ukraine eventually signed drops that requirement and while it doesn't include the explicit security guarantees Ukraine was hoping for, it at least gives this transactionally minded administration a financial stake in Ukraine's future.
As for the ongoing ceasefire talks, Trump overturned two oft-stated principles of the Biden approach: that Russia should be diplomatically isolated and that there would be no negotiations 'about Ukraine without Ukraine.' But ultimately, Ukraine's political position may have been strengthened by the process. Putin has rejected a proposed 30-day ceasefire after Ukraine agreed to one, was a no-show at talks in Istanbul, where Zelenskyy had proposed meeting face-to-face, and has rejected Trump's proposal to have talks mediated by the Vatican.
It's much harder for even the most skeptical to argue, as Trump has previously, that the war is only continuing because of Zelenskyy's unwillingness to make a deal. Even Trump has been forced to wonder if Putin is merely 'tapping me along,' engaging minimally in the diplomatic process without abandoning his end goal of subjugating all of Ukraine, not just the disputed regions, by force.
Trump has clearly moved on from the notion that he can end the war in 24 hours and seems to be losing interest in the peace talks entirely. Or as Vance put it, 'We're more than open to walking away.'
Much depends on what exactly 'walking away' means. If it means an end to weapons shipments, intelligence sharing, and sanctions on Russia, that would be disastrous for Ukraine, though not necessarily fatal.
'It's not as if we pulled the plug tomorrow, that Ukrainians would just immediately cease to exist, which I think was the administration's assumption when they came in,' said Jeffrey Edmonds, a former White House and Pentagon Russia adviser. 'They thought they had a lot more leverage than they did over both Ukraine and Russia.' (A spokesperson for the White House national security council did not respond to Vox's request for comment.)
If Trump merely maintains the status quo — keeps the sanctions that are already in place, continues shipping the weapons that have already been paid for — that might be enough for the Ukrainians to hold the line for at least the coming months.
It's true that Russian troops continue to slowly advance, but the rate of advance is already slowing this year, and it loses dozens of casualties per square kilometer. According to one recent estimate, it would take Russia 80 years to conquer all of Ukraine's territory at the current rate.
Ukraine's bigger concern may be recruiting enough troops to man the front lines, though its efforts have improved somewhat, US commanders say, and low morale among both troops and civilians as the war drags on with no end in sight.
Russia has manpower woes as well as increasing signs of economic distress as it continues to pour money into Ukraine. Trump's tariffs have had the unexpected side-effect of slashing the Russian state's oil revenues.
Before Trump took office, Ukrainian leaders expressed some cautious optimism that despite Trump's fondness for Putin and skepticism about the value of supporting to Ukraine, they'd be able to appeal to his transactional nature and turn him to their side. That was overoptimistic: Trump seems unlikely ever to be a strong backer of Ukraine. But he at least appears less likely to be a strong backer of Russia. For the moment, they may be the best they can hope for.