How might this affect Ukraine on the battlefield in the short term? | DW News

ruticker 04.03.2025 15:25:08

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We begin with **breaking news**. In the last few minutes, U.S. President Donald Trump has **paused all military aid** to Ukraine following his clash with Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky at the White House last week. Now, the halt comes after Trump accused Zelensky of being uninterested in peace and ungrateful for U.S. support. White House officials said that U.S. aid would be reviewed to ensure that it was *contributing to a solution*. We can speak with **Christine Bers** now from the German Marshall Fund Think Tank. She's responsible for geopolitical analysis in Northern Europe and North America. Great to have you on the program. Now, Trump has ordered U.S. military aid to Ukraine to be halted. I'm interested to hear your reaction to that. **Christine Bers:** First up, this is a very alarming development in the relationship between the United States and Ukraine and is definitely a blow to Ukraine's war fighting abilities. There has been speculation since Friday's hostile meeting between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office that there could be dramatic measures that the Trump Administration could take in order to pressure Zelensky to get on the same page as the United States. Now, what has been announced this evening here in Washington is a pause on these aid deliveries, but in many ways, that is how a lot of Trump policies start—a pause for evaluation. When it comes to U.S. aid, for example, that pause has led to the halting of programming rather than resumption. So, this puts Zelensky in a hard place. The question is, how does Ukraine act next? Does Zelensky become more in line with Trump's view on diplomacy? This is another example of how Trump is prioritizing the speed of peace and getting to the negotiating table rather than any particular outcome in terms of what's in it for Ukraine. For Trump, the cessation of hostilities is sufficient. *I'm sorry to interrupt you, but is this what you mean when you're talking about the pressure that this is meant to put on Vladimir Zelensky?* **Christine Bers:** Absolutely. We saw on Friday that Zelensky was not interested in capitulating to Trump on his version of events, on his reading of Putin. He very much was still fighting for the narrative of Russia as the aggressor. Over the weekend at the London Summit, there was a continuation of the need to have sufficient military aid so that the stronger position of Ukraine is attained for there to be good negotiations. In some ways, this is the U.S. answer, which is not to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position but to put Ukraine at a negotiating table. That again comes to the point of speed of negotiation being a primary focus for President Trump and his team rather than an enduring peace, which is, of course, what Zelensky and what Europeans want. Here we see a tension between the European and Ukrainian view and an American focus on the cessation of hostilities as the primary objective. Right now, Donald Trump seems to be losing his patience with Vladimir Zelensky. Just keeping in mind everything that you just said, is there any way the U.S. could force Ukraine to sign a deal to end the war that Ukraine doesn't want to sign? **Christine Bers:** It's hard to say exactly how things will continue. What is clear is that Donald Trump wants there to be a table to which people come and there to be an actual negotiating process. There are things that Zelensky seems to be willing to sign. Since Friday, he has signaled that he would like to sign the minerals deal. There's also progress that Europeans have made on promising peacekeepers should there be a cessation of hostilities with a focus on deterrence as well. That is a lot more of what Ukraine wants out of this. Can there be enough of the European peace and enough of the American speed to make Zelensky happy enough? Maybe, but again, it's going to be incredibly challenging as we move through the coming days and months to get to something that will be truly appreciated by the Ukrainian people. Now, if Trump is pausing military aid to Ukraine, we don't know how long for. How could this impact Ukraine on the battlefield in the immediate short term? **Christine Bers:** This is going to be difficult for Ukraine. Ukraine has been relying on pre-allocated, pre-financed U.S. aid, and that comes in terms of weapons delivery. The U.S. is not the only aid provider, and the Europeans are very much talking about an additional $20 billion. That was the question a few days ago, but it could be much more than that in the future of military assistance. However, this does slow down what is available to Ukraine, and if there needs to be a triangulation away from American military support, there's no automatic other power, no automatic stockpile that can be used instead. Again, a lot of the logistics required are complicated to set up, and so it's going to put Ukraine again in a tougher position. What's not clear is whether this pause is short-term or medium-term. Is this a pause until Zelensky apologizes? Is this a pause until there are peace talks? It seems that Trump very much wants to incentivize Putin to come to the table and also pressure Zelensky to come to that same table. Often in diplomacy, we talk about carrots and sticks, and right now the carrots are being given to Putin, and the sticks are being used against Zelensky. For Ukrainians and Europeans broadly, this doesn't seem fair. **Christine Bers** with the German Marshall Fund speaking to us on this breaking news of the Trump Administration pausing military aid to Ukraine. Christine, we really appreciate that. Thank you.

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