Mar 04 2025 7 mins 1
If there were international affairs Oscars in the category of biggest return for least investment, then the Russian president would have won hands down after the fiery blow-up between the US and Ukrainian presidents, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, in the White House last Friday (February 28, 2025). The meeting itself would probably win in the category of most unexpected screenplay, given the astonishing shouting match between the two leaders.
The rift deepened on Monday, with Mr Trump blasting Mr Zelensky for saying that the end of the war was still “very, very far away” when he should be “more appreciative” of US support. The White House also confirmed that Washington was pausing military aid to Ukraine.
Does that now mean it’s all over for Zelenskyy? The minerals deal—initially floated by Ukraine and then eagerly embraced by Trump—certainly seems off, for now at least. And gone with it is any chance of an American security guarantee, however tenuous that might have been in the first instance. The only upside, if you can call it that, is that there is now absolute clarity that the United States under Donald Trump can no longer be relied upon as a partner when it comes to the future of Ukraine.
Even if Zelensky and Trump can somehow miraculously mend their relationship, it is not clear whether any deal would be worth the mea culpa and additional concessions that would be required of Ukraine.
Trump, after all, has made his own unpredictability—or maybe just his poorly disguised lack of self-control—a key feature of his approach to foreign policy.
This is something worth bearing in mind in light of discussions that Ukraine may need a different leader, one more committed to peace than winning back lost territory, as Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, suggested over the weekend. A different Ukrainian leader would still have to deal with the same US president, even though there may be less personal acrimony in their relationship.
All eyes are now on Europe, where the near-certainty of fundamentally altered transatlantic relations seems to have finally sunk in. An urgently convened defence summit in London on Sunday (March 2, 2025) brought some concrete results, including a pledge from the UK to supply Ukraine with air defence missiles worth £1.6 billion. Plans for European security guarantees—provided by a “coalition of the willing” across the EU and NATO—are also beginning to take shape. A Special European Council on March 6, 2025, is likely to reveal further details on how much European leaders are willing to mobilise, and how soon.
Funding these endeavours will still prove challenging. One avenue available to Europe remains seizing billions in frozen Russian assets, not just using the interest they generate.
In Germany, where talks on forming a new grand coalition are under way following the country’s February 23 elections, there is talk of a €400 billion defence fund.
Other options include a European rearmament bank and a common European defence fund, both built around the “coalition of the willing” and thus likely able to circumvent traditionally cumbersome EU decision making. Some of these efforts could also be kick-started by re-directing the €93 billion left in the EU’s COVID recovery fund.
The surge in the share prices of major European defence contractors, including BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, and Rheinmetall, indicate that there is confidence in the private sector that European states will procure more military equipment. This, in turn, is likely to lead to more corporate investment in Europe’s defence industrial base in anticipation of higher sales and profits.
Time is running out for both Ukraine and Europe.
Trump’s deal with Putin might just be a deal that lifts American sanctions against Russia, cuts Ukraine off any US support, and limits, or perhaps even completely revokes, the US security guarantee to Europe through NATO and with it any effective deterrence against further Russian aggression.
It may not come to this, at least not yet, but in light of how the Trump administration is treating all of its once-close allies and partners, such an outcome is now more than a far-flung and improbable scenario.
For now, Putin may think that he can just sit back and enjoy the chaos. But part of what is likely to have led to the outbursts in the White House is the frustration that Trump has experienced in his relationship with the Kremlin. Moscow may not exactly be winning its war against Ukraine, but it is definitely not losing. The pace of territorial gains may have slowed over the past few weeks, but this might also just be the calm before the storm of a Russian spring offensive. In the meantime, daily Russian airstrikes, often involving hundreds of drones have continued unabated, damaging Ukrainian infrastructure and morale.
The challenges that Ukraine and its European partners face are significant, but they are not insurmountable. A small European peacekeeping force in Ukraine is conceivable—both as a tripwire force and as a way to bolster Ukrainian air defences against unrelenting Russian attacks. This might buy Ukraine and Europe time to build up their defence industrial capacities and simply produce more arms and ammunitions, including in Ukraine, to make deterrence, even with a diminished US security guarantee, look credible.
Key European countries—the UK, France, and post-election Germany—have been galvanised by the deterioration of transatlantic relations, and with the predictable exception of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, European unity has held up well in the face of an increasingly hostile Trump administration. All the signs are that Europe will finally rise to the challenge of becoming a geopolitical, and not just geo-economic player—even if this will not happen overnight.
Putin may therefore think that he can still gain more on the battlefield than at the negotiation table and is likely to draw out the process of any talks. He clearly does not betray any sense of urgency on the part of Russia to end this war. But Trump has said more than once, including in the public rebuke of Zelenskyy on his Truth Social network immediately after their meeting, that he wants peace.
The US president is unpredictable, and, occasionally, he should be taken both seriously and literally.
An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on March 4, 2025.
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