Trump's halt on military aid hurts Ukraine - but may not be fatal

The US has been Ukraine's biggest military backer since Russia's full-scale invasion began three years ago. The suspension of that aid by the Trump administration doesn't mean Ukraine's defences will quickly collapse.

But it's a major blow that threatens to remove some of the most formidable weapons in Ukraine's battlefield arsenal, and ratchets up pressure on Kyiv to accept a peace agreement.

Here's a look at the decision and its implications.

The United States has given the Ukrainians more than US$180 billion (NZ$319 billion) in assistance since Russia launched an all-out war on February 24, 2022, including more than US$66.5 billion in military aid.

Washington provides about 20% of Ukraine's military supplies, and that includes the most lethal and important equipment, including longer-range missiles and Patriot air defence systems that can shoot down the most powerful Russian projectiles.

American military assistance also goes far beyond weapons and ammunition.

Ukrainian troops rely on satellite communications systems supplied by Elon Musk's Starlink to communicate on the front line, and on American intelligence to track Russian troop movements and select targets for Ukrainian strikes. The US confirmed on Thursday NZT that it was also stopping the sharing of intelligence.

That includes data from satellites and other assets, and will badly affect Ukraine's capability to strike back at Russia, and Ukraine's other allies lack the resources to fill the gap.

"A lot will depend on what's covered by the American suspension," said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of defence think tank RUSI. "Will they suspend all technical assistance to Ukraine? That would have a more dramatic, more rapid impact than simply stopping the pipeline of arms."

After confirmation that intelligence sharing had also been paused, Jim Himes the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said: “The idea that we will now withhold life-saving intelligence from Ukrainians who are fighting and dying is unforgivable."

The White House said the US is "pausing and reviewing" its Ukraine aid to "ensure that it is contributing to a solution". The order will remain in effect until US President Donald Trump determines that Ukraine has demonstrated a commitment to peace negotiations with Russia.

The decision follows an explosive meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, in which Trump and US Vice President JD Vance said he hasn't expressed sufficient gratitude for American support.

It's murky at best.

Trump's order pausing aid includes military assistance and weapons that had already been approved and were en route to Ukraine, according to a defence official. The official said it's not clear what weapons that includes or how much aid was stopped even as it was heading to Kyiv.

Since the war began, the US had used two major ways to provide security assistance to Kyiv: presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, which takes weapons and supplies from Pentagon stockpiles and sends them quickly to the front, and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which uses longer-term contracts to send weapons.

The official said some weapons approved by the Biden administration in recent months that were being provided through the PDA were affected by Trump's pause. But no details are available.

As an example, a US$500 million aid package was the last one approved in January, before President Joe Biden left office. It included missiles for air defence, ammunition bridging systems and other equipment. Officials did not know how much of that aid had already arrived in Ukraine and how much, if any of it, has been paused.

It's also unclear whether Trump's order has any impact on any of the contracts that were authorised or finalised under USAI during the Biden administration.

The US move won't have an immediate impact on the battlefield, where Kyiv's forces are struggling to stem a relentless Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have slowed Russian advances along the roughly 1,000km front line, where Russia is slowly gaining ground at a huge human and material cost.

The pause in aid will weaken air defences and will hurt Ukraine's ability to hit Russian targets far behind the front lines.

Alexander Kots, a Russian war blogger, said that for Ukraine, "the US aid suspension is unpleasant but not deadly".

He said that while Ukraine's European allies can fill some of the gaps and provide artillery systems, they don't have alternatives to the US-made air defence systems and longer-range HIMARS missile systems that can strike ground targets up to 300km away.

Ukraine is already running low on missiles for the American-supplied Patriot systems, which are crucial to defending cities from Russian air attacks, according to Patrick Bury, a warfare expert at the UK's University of Bath.

"The problem is, a lot of what the US provides is the stuff that Europe cannot, and other countries cannot, provide in the short term — high-end stuff," he said.

Ukraine has stockpiles of artillery shells and other munitions, and has ramped up domestic production of drones, which are now among the most important weapons in the war. It's estimated that just over half of the military hardware used by Ukraine is domestically produced.

Chalmers, the RUSI expert, said the Ukrainians have built up their defence production and "are innovating at an incredible rate because of the pressure they're under".

"I think they will survive for quite some time," he said. "But it's a material blow, and it's also a challenge to Europe."

A summit in London on Sunday was aimed at getting European leaders to step up and put Ukraine in the best possible position before potential peace talks.

The UK announced that it would use 1.6 billion pounds (NZ$3.6 billion) in export financing to supply 5,000 air defence missiles. The European Union has proposed an 800 billion euro (NZ$1.5 trillion) plan to bolster the defences of EU nations and provide Ukraine with military muscle.

But Samir Puri, director of the Center for Global Governance and Security at international affairs think tank Chatham House, said European and American aid are intertwined.

"This was always a joint effort," he said. "The US gives a lot, the Europeans give a lot. You take away the Americans from that joint effort and… there's just a huge component missing to the structure."