So it’s official: Washington is pulling the plug on military aid to Ukraine. At Congressional hearings this week US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth confirmed the Trump administration has a “very different view” of the war in Ukraine to that of Joe Biden’s – and insisted that a “negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests.”

Axar.az informs, citing Telegraph, given that the topic of the hearings was the US’s 2026 military budget, the message could hardly have been clearer. Fighting Russia is now Europe’s problem.

Some of the Biden-era packages are still coming down the procurement pipeline. But the bitter bottom line for Kyiv is that it has been abandoned by its most powerful and deep-pocketed ally.

That leaves Ukraine three options. The first is to rely on Europe stepping in to supply the weapons and equipment it needs. The second – proposed earlier this month by Zelensky – was to buy US made weapons from Washington with European money. The third is to make the weapons it needs in Ukrainian factories, funded by money from European allies.

Happily for Ukraine, Europe’s leaders have repeatedly promised to step up to the plate and deliver what Ukraine needs to fight on. Less happily, in practice, Europe seems better at promising than actually stepping.

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