Ukraine has been stockpiling arms and ammunition since before Donald Trump’s election victory last November, but over time the US president’s halting of military aid will be felt in air defence and other high-value weapons systems the US is uniquely placed to supply.
“They got a lot of kit in before the inauguration,” said a senior western official, adding that it would be enough to keep Ukraine in the fight “well beyond” what they described as the period during which ceasefire negotiations were expected to last.
A defence expert in Kyiv said Ukraine had a “safety margin of about six months” and could survive at least in the short term without US military assistance. “It will, of course, be much more difficult,” said Fedir Venislavsky, a Ukrainian MP and member of the Verkhovna Rada defence committee.
Though US military aid previously ran dry in early 2024 – because Republicans in the House of Representatives were declining to vote through new funding – a bumper package was voted through in April last year that allowed stockpiles to be built up during the final months of the Biden administration.
But the sheer size of US military aid since February 2022 means its absence will be felt. Since the start of the war, that has amounted to $31.7bn (£24.8bn) in arms and ammunition from stocks – plus additional funding for Ukraine to buy US-made weapons, taking the total to $65.9bn.
The aid has included everything from 500m rounds of ammunition for guns, small grenades, up to three Patriot air defence systems and 300 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, according to figures released by the White House on the last day of the Biden administration.
European military aid has been at similar levels, at €62bn (£51bn) since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and its current proportion has, according to Ukrainian military sources, increased to 25%, a greater proportion than the 20% from the US. The remainder is either made in Ukraine or bought directly by Ukraine.
However, “the cream” of the military aid, the western official said, came from the US. The most notable were Patriot air defence systems and their missiles, which are designed and made in the US. Once stocks of the interceptors dwindle, they will be impossible to replace, putting cities and strategic locations in Ukraine at risk.
Other critical areas could also be affected if the Trump administration goes further by halting the supply of long-range reconnaissance data to Ukraine, which is critical in helping Kyiv get early warnings of incoming glide bomb attacks, and to identify targets for deep strikes inside Russia.
Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service also provides day-to-day frontline communications for Ukraine via a contract with the Pentagon. This is critical to Ukraine’s war effort, for example linking up drone crews in networks of dugouts to each other and back to command centres, although it may be possible to replace it with a similar service from Europe’s Eutelsat.
In other areas, European military support is comfortably beyond that of the US. Europe is this year expected to produce 2m artillery shells for Ukraine, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank, compared with 850,000 from the US. But even with the US supply included, this is still below the anticipated 4m shells produced by Russia.
The question is whether such discrepancies will be decisive in Moscow’s favour. Russia’s seizure of Avdiivka on the eastern front in early 2024 was achieved with a 5 to 1 artillery advantage, according to the Institute of the Study of War – while its advance towards Pokrovsk stalled after the summer, partly after that advantage was reduced to 1.5 to 1.
Russia is advancing modestly at multiple points on the frontline, though the number of its casualties killed and wounded is in excess of 1,000 a day. Its rate of progress is now likely to increase, although in 2024, which included four months when Ukraine received no US military aid, Russia’s territorial gain amounted to 4,168 sq km (1,609 sq miles) of open fields and small towns – about 0.6% of the whole country.
On the frontline Ukraine and Russia make extensive use of drones, for surveillance and to carry out strikes. Ukraine’s drone production is now likely to increase further. Speaking last week, on the third anniversary of Moscow’s invasion, Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said his country had become the “biggest drone manufacturer in the world”.
Small, home-assembled FPV drones and DJI Mavic drones from China are at the heart of Ukraine’s day-to-day war effort. It says it produces nearly 200,000 drones a month, with Russia at similar levels, and it is important to Kyiv that it maintains component supply, which comes largely from China.
Umerov said Ukrainian engineers were working intensively to expand the “kill zone” – the distance in which kamikaze drones could fly before hitting an enemy target. This included long-range drones used to destroy military facilities deep inside Russia to a depth of 1,700km (1,055 miles) – which is a cost-effective alternative to US-supplied Himars rocket artillery and Atacms missiles.
However, last month analysts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded that Russia had the resources to continue fighting at current levels for at least another year without ordering a fresh mobilisation, even though Moscow has lost at least 172,000 troops killed and 611,000 wounded since the start of its invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, Ukraine’s population is a third the size of Russia’s, and it has increasingly struggled with military recruitment as the war has dragged on. Ukraine has already lost 45,100 soldiers, with at least a further 12,340 civilians killed (this does not include figures for those who died at Mariupol during the Russian siege in 2022 or others who died in occupied areas).
Ukraine’s military capability will inevitably be dented by Trump’s decision to withdraw aid, but it still has the means to defend itself, with continuing European support. The result though is that the country is likely to suffer more casualties at a faster rate.
