How Trump’s return will harm Ukraine

Analyse

Donald Trump’s electoral victory threatens to further worsen the situation in Ukraine. It seems unlikely that Europeans will mobilize to save the country, even if American aid were to end.

Kurt Pelda, Kharkiv / ch media

With Donald Trump as president, US military aid to Ukraine could be further reduced. This is what many observers inside and outside the country fear. In kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated the future American president on his clear electoral victory and called on him to build peace through force. Hear: continue deliveries of American weapons.

Even if Trump does not cut aid completely, he will expect compensation from Zelensky, for example in the form of concessions to Russia in possible peace negotiations. It is also possible that Ukraine will have to take out credits to pay for weapons supplied by the United States in the future.

Significant decline in 2023

Trump is unpredictable, says Ukrainian journalist Petro Tchoumakov, who recently had to flee his hometown in the east of the country to escape the Russians. But, according to him, it is also possible that Washington will put pressure on Moscow in order to reach a negotiated solution.

The problem is that Ukraine needs constant arms supplies to resist the Russian onslaught to the east and south.

According to figures from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), overall aid provided to Ukraine has declined significantly since the start of 2023. This is especially the case for deliveries of military equipment.

This is also manifested in the situation on the front: the number of square kilometers conquered each day by Russia has increased from less than 6 to almost 15 since the beginning of August. However, since February 2022, Moscow has only been able to occupy around 11% of Ukrainian territory. Nothing would therefore be lost if the West continued to actively support the country.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment. Although the Europeans have so far provided much more overall aid than the United States, their share of military aid is much more modest.

The IfW estimated different scenarios in which total aid to Ukraine could fall by around 30-60% next year. This would have serious repercussions on the future of the country.

An anti-Western alliance

Even if there was a political will in Europe to increase arms deliveries, the Old Continent alone does not have the capacity to compensate for the possible disappearance of American support. Many Ukrainians therefore rely on the strength of their own defense industry and the creativity of their engineers and software developers. Impressive results have certainly been achieved, but this will not be enough in the future.

While Trump has already pledged his support for Israel, he has remained silent regarding Ukraine. Yet Moscow’s war has exposed an alliance between Russia, Iran, North Korea and China that together challenges the West and attempts to turn the tide in Europe. Trump does not seem to have realized that China and Iran, which he has repeatedly denounced in the past, are Putin’s allies and thus threaten America’s interests via Russia.

The participation of North Korean troops in the fighting with the Ukrainians represents an escalation to which the West has so far not reacted. But if there is one thing we have learned from Putin’s experience, it is that the absence of a firm response is interpreted by the master of the Kremlin as an invitation to ever more provocations and escalation.