Can Ukraine withstand Russia without American support? 3 pressure cards in Trump's hand

The bloody Russian attacks on Ukraine continue, amid growing fears in Kiev about the decline in American support provided to it. The recent tensions between Kiev and US President Donald Trump are not the first of their kind, as Trump began his second term by suspending aid allocated to the Ukrainian war effort.

Since then, Europe has borne the brunt of support costs, while Kiev hastened to strengthen its domestic defense industries and expand its production capabilities. To what extent does Ukraine still depend on US support?

Experts believe that the United States has three main tools to pressure Kiev, including the economic, military and political fields, in an effort to push Ukraine towards a form of surrender and end the war launched by Russia. The Trump administration has halted new aid packages for Ukraine in early 2025.

Before that, the United States provided at least $131.5 billion in total aid to Ukraine, remaining its largest single donor so far since the start of the all-out Russian invasion in 2022, according to data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research center that tracks aid provided to Ukraine during the war. Some weapons purchased from American manufacturers during the administration of former President Joe Biden are still arriving in Ukraine, but many of those contracts have already been implemented.

Kiel Institute data show that the European Union countries and institutions, taken together, have surpassed the United States in terms of total aid provided to Ukraine, with the value of its aid amounting to no less than $228.5 billion since 2022. At the level of European countries, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden have provided the largest amount of military aid among the European Union countries.

The United Kingdom and Norway also contributed a large share of military aid from outside the bloc. A percentage of the aid comes in the form of purchases of American-made weapons financed by allied countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), before transferring them to Ukraine.

However, transfers of these European weapons still require approval from the US Department of Defense (Pentagon), giving the Trump administration an additional leverage. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the severe shortage of American Patriot interceptor missiles, saying: “The delivery of the interceptor missiles needed to protect us from Russian ballistic missiles is still late.

“We are waiting for missiles that have already been agreed upon, but they have not arrived yet.” Last week, Ukraine’s stock of Patriot interceptor missiles, one of the few defense systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, ran out, making the country more vulnerable to Russian attacks.

Ukrainian defenses were unable to intercept any of the ballistic missiles that targeted Kiev overnight and into Thursday morning, which indicates that stocks of Patriot missiles are still empty or at very low levels. In a statement to the Ofoq News network hours after the attack, Zelensky said that at this critical moment, Ukraine needs two basic things from its allies: “Not to lift the sanctions on Putin...

Given that these arms orders represent a huge gain for US defense companies, analysts believe that any slowdown or obstruction of purchases is unlikely to last for a long time.