Ukraine “and her most courageous people” deserve our “unyielding resolve” to help defend their nation against Russian aggression and “secure a truly just and lasting peace,” Britain’s King Charles III told a joint session of Congress last week.
One can only hope that U.S. officials take the king’s message to heart. Indeed, the Trump Administration should side unequivocally with Ukraine and recognize that we and Ukraine have a common enemy: Russia.
By choosing to invade Ukraine initially in 2014 and then in the full-scale war in 2022 that continues to this day, the Vladimir Putin regime in Moscow created the worst security crisis on the European continent since World War II. Russia regularly threatens our NATO allies along its borders and launches cyberattacks against us. In the Middle East, it has shared intelligence and possibly even weapons to Iran to target Americans. Moscow recently hosted Iran’s foreign minister, and Putin pledged Russia’s support.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, U.S. policy toward Ukraine has fallen short, especially recently. Despite President Donald Trump’s campaign pledges to end the fighting in his first days in office, the war is well into its fifth year, with no end in sight. Putin is not interested in ending the war he started, despite staggering losses on the Russian side and little to show for them.
Low hopes for changing U.S. policy
Any hope for change in U.S. policy suffered a setback, however, the same day as King Charles’ address when the press reported that Julie Davis, the top American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, will soon leave her post.
Davis, a longtime and highly respected foreign service officer whom I knew when I worked at the State Department, had “grown frustrated with her role amid differences with President Trump over his dwindling support for Ukraine,” according to a report in the Financial Times. The State Department disputed that account.
That frustration may have been exacerbated by Vice President JD Vance’s recent boast that ending U.S. aid to Ukraine is “one of the things I’m proudest that we’ve done in this administration.” Indeed, since it entered office, the Trump Administration has reduced U.S. assistance to Ukraine by 99%.
Administration officials, in particular special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have visited Russia numerous times to meet with Putin and top Russian counterparts but have yet to set foot on Ukrainian soil. When American officials do engage with their Ukrainian counterparts, it usually is to pressure them into making territorial concessions to Russia – land that Russia doesn’t even control – or to scold them in front of cameras. Needless to say, that approach doesn’t go over well in Kyiv, nor should it.
Following a recent visit to Ukraine, former U.S. Ambassador William Taylor concluded, “In talking with Ukrainians, I’ve found that they do not put much faith in U.S.-sponsored negotiations with the Russians.” Another former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Steve Pifer, recently noted, “Trump regularly asserts that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] is the obstacle to peace and that Putin wants a deal – despite mountains of obvious evidence to the contrary.”
Ukrainians’ confidence in the United States is declining, Politico reported, citing a new national poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Only 27% of Ukrainians say they trust potential future U.S. security guarantees, a drop from 39% in a survey done in January. Only 40% of Ukrainians believe the United States will provide the necessary support for their efforts, down 17 percentage points from January.
Instead of siding unambiguously with Ukraine, as it should, the U.S. administration has sought to play the role of “neutral arbiter.” The only pressure the Trump Administration has applied on the Russian side is in the form of sanctions last October on Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest energy companies. But Treasury Department waivers issued to allow the sale of Russian oil already on ships have weakened that pressure on Russia; those waivers were issued due to the energy crisis resulting from the conflict in the Middle East.
All this reinforces Ukraine’s understanding that it will need to carry on without U.S. support. As Phillips O’Brien, an American professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, recently wrote, “Kyiv appears to have given up on the United States. It is aggressively seeking new diplomatic and military partners” such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. It also recently signed arms-production agreements with Germany and Norway.
At least Europe is stepping up
Ukraine has provided critical anti-drone technology and assistance against Iranian drone attacks to countries in the Persian Gulf, even as it continues to defend against a major Russian assault every day. This demonstrates Ukraine’s contributions to global security and its constructive role beyond its borders. No other country has had the unfortunate experience of dealing with Russian and Iranian drone attacks the way Ukraine has. Regrettably, the U.S. administration dismissed Ukraine’s offers of help.
Europe has stepped in to fill the void left by the end of U.S. aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research center. That includes recent passage of a long-stalled but vital $106 billion loan package for Ukraine that had been held up by the outgoing, pro-Russian government in Hungary. Much of this new money – made possible by recent elections in Hungary and defeat of the pro-Russian Viktor Orban government – will be in the form of military support.
The Trump Administration would argue that Europe should bear the burden of defending Ukraine, that the war is Europe’s problem, not America’s. But imagine what Ukraine could have accomplished had there been full-throated U.S. support from the outset in 2022. Russia might not be in a position to assist Iran if there had been greater support for Ukraine. The Biden Administration provided only enough aid to keep Ukraine in the fight, not enough to win the war. Congress included $400 million in aid to Ukraine in the latest appropriations bill, a small sum compared with past U.S. support.
Ukraine’s doing well on its own
Still, Ukraine has done remarkably well on its own, with European help, despite being vastly outnumbered by the Russian side.
As the George W. Bush Institute noted in analysis marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine as of last fall produced nearly 60% of its own battlefield equipment, a percentage that is rising. Its drone industry is arguably the best in the world, as Ukrainian drone strikes are responsible for approximately 70% of all Russian casualties and some 90% of Russian combat vehicle losses. Ukraine is also producing cutting-edge weapons such as robot-like unmanned vehicles equipped with machine guns.
Ukraine produces more mortar shells and artillery shells than all 32 NATO nations combined. It makes nearly 1,000 interceptor drones each day, including long-range drones with larger payloads, as well as long-range cruise missiles. This indigenous capability enables it to hit military and related targets deep inside Russia, including against Russia’s energy infrastructure, which finances Russia’s Kremlin’s wartime economy.
In light of its campaign against Iran, the Trump Administration urged Ukraine to stop targeting Russian energy platforms and refineries to ensure sufficient global oil and gas flows amid the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and, ultimately, global shipping corridors.
Ukraine has ignored these requests because its strikes are done with Ukrainian-made weapons. But this reflects how much U.S. influence over Ukraine has dropped. The U.S. administration barely provides any assistance to Ukraine these days which it can threaten to terminate; it has already ended the flows of aid aside from the new $400 million appropriation. Ukraine knows this and feels emboldened to say no when pushed by U.S. negotiators.
Ukraine would do even better with a steady supply of American Patriot missile systems to defend against Russian attacks. It also benefits from U.S. intelligence-sharing for effective targeting of Russian forces but undoubtedly would turn to Europe should there be a cutoff from the United States.
Russia isn’t doing well
Russian forces have captured less than 1% of additional Ukrainian territory in 2025 – and at enormous costs in loss of Russian lives and materiel. A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently estimated Russian losses at 1.2 million – 415,000 dead, wounded, and missing last year alone.
As it is, Russia has had to empty its prisons, rely on North Korean soldiers, forced immigrants, and others to join the front line. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency estimates Moscow is preparing to recruit at least 18,500 foreigners into Russia’s armed forces in 2026. Foreign fighters are “often recruited under false pretenses and press-ganged under pressure,” according to U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey.
So far this year, Ukraine is eliminating more Russian soldiers than Russia is able to recruit and send to the front lines. The Russian government has had to significantly increase bonuses to encourage poor families to send their fathers, sons, or brothers to go into the meat grinder, as the front is commonly known.
Amid Russia’s rapidly declining economic situation, sustaining this war campaign will become more challenging for Putin. To the extent that one can place stock in public opinion surveys in Russia, Putin’s popularity is declining: His approval rating inside Russia has fallen to 66.7% in April from 74.8% since the beginning of February, according to state-owned pollster VTsIOM.
And yet Putin seems hellbent on continuing the war no matter what. He knows no other way and refuses to accept Ukraine as an independent country – unless and until he is forced to stop.
This argues for a stronger push by Ukraine and other countries to encourage more defections among those fighting on the Russian side. Ukraine’s 24-hour ”I Want to Live“ hotline project seeks to do just that. Conditions for Russian soldiers are miserable, as commanders treat their troops like cannon fodder. More can and should be done to weaken the morale on the Russian side. Eventually, Putin may not have enough troops to carry out his orders.
It wasn’t long ago that the dominant narrative about the war was that “Ukraine is losing.” That wasn’t true before, and it definitely isn’t true today. Ukraine is managing on its own better than most might have anticipated. Europe is helping more significantly than it had been. If the U.S. administration would listen to King Charles, Ukraine would be in an even stronger position.
A weakened Russia and a bolstered Ukraine would be in America’s national interests. In contrast to the regime in Moscow, which threatens us and our allies, the government in Ukraine enhances our security and contributes to global stability.
There should no longer be any doubt that the United States belongs on Ukraine’s side. It’s time to start acting like it and listen to the king.
