A decision by the White House to suspend all military aid to Ukraine has stunned Kyiv and its European allies, throwing the very future of the established world order into doubt.
"I'm utterly staggered. It's just extraordinary," Timothy Ash, associate fellow at the Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, told the Kyiv Independent on March 4.
"It's almost like the collapse of the Soviet Union if you think of the scale of what we're seeing now, it's utterly remarkable."
Ash said the implications of the military aid freeze, as well as U.S. President Donald Trump's hostile rhetoric towards President Volodymyr Zelensky in recent weeks, will have profound implications not only for Ukraine, but the entire world.
The Kyiv Independent: What's your initial reaction to the U.S. freezing military aid to Ukraine?
Timothy Ash: Well, it's very disappointing and sad. I guess one conclusion from the White House meeting on Friday was that clearly the Trump administration is in the (Russian President Vladimir) Putin camp. I mean, NATO is kind of dead.
Any idea that the U.S. will provide some kind of security guarantee to NATO and any peacekeeping operation in Ukraine is… it's pretty clear that's not going to happen.
The only positive for Ukraine, I guess, is that it's clear now where it stands. It's clear where it stands in respect to the U.S. and it has to make its decisions accordingly.
The Kyiv Independent: Can you place all of this historically in terms of how significant these events are that we're seeing?
Timothy Ash: Well, to be honest, it's utterly shocking. The mainstay of European security since World War II has been NATO. And I think people like (U.S. Vice President) JD Vance forget that the U.S. triggered Article 5 after the 9/11 terror attack — NATO allies rallied around the U.S.
It's also interesting that over the last few hours or 24 hours at least, Vance has been criticising some European countries in terms of their military capability. That's not gone down very well in the U.K. in particular, given that the U.K. and European countries also stood behind the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I mean, we lost (635) soldiers in both conflicts. So it is simply extraordinary… that we need to think of a new security architecture in Europe.
"The penny seems to have dropped in Europe, finally."
We're seeing huge shifts, tectonic shifts in alliances that I don't think anyone could quite have imagined.
This idea that the Americans and the Russians are going to ally up against the Chinese, Europe left stranded — what's Europe going to do? I mean it's just utterly extraordinary.
The penny seems to have dropped in Europe, finally. They realize that they need to increase their own defense spending and ramp up military production.
Kateryna Denisova
Obviously, we've had announcements this morning from (European Commission President Ursula) Von der Leyen and various European politicians in that regard.
But in the end, there is a short-term gap. Years of underinvestment, years of neglect in terms of defense spending have left us dependent on the Americans.
Going forward, that can't endure. We have to change. How we get through the transition period is kind of difficult.
The immediate problem is obviously Ukraine — how we help Ukraine get through this existential threat to its survival. And longer term, Europe has to see Ukraine as being pretty central to its own defense with the Americans gone.
Ukraine is a very capable military force. Almost the only thing standing behind Europe and Russia at the moment is Ukraine. So how do we work better with the Ukrainians to help build our own defense? That's a huge question mark.
How do I put it into perspective? I'm utterly staggered. It's just extraordinary. It's almost like the collapse of the Soviet Union if you think of the scale of what we're seeing now, it's utterly remarkable.
The Kyiv Independent: The collapse of the Soviet Union was a generally positive event for the West – is it fair to say that the ramifications of this change are going to be largely negative?
Timothy Ash: The collapse of the Soviet Union set in motion many of the problems that we're dealing with today. Essentially, we spent the peace dividend. We assumed we'd won the Cold War. And now, those chickens are coming home to roost. But we need to move on.
It's the reality. We are where we are. And it's crystal clear now that the U.S. is not a reliable partner.
Europe has some leverage — it's a big economy, $27 trillion. It has buying power. I'm not worried about the finances of stepping up defense production. I'm just worried about the physical challenge of actually producing and buying weapons.
In the short term, you'd imagine the Americans would still be willing to sell them to Europe. It would be a huge market.
And then eventually, Europe will step up and will be a significant arms producer. And again, I would imagine that would give it leverage also with the Americans.
If in the end, this is a hegemonic battle for supremacy between the U.S. and China, I do find it a bit ironic, or a bit strange that the Americans have decided to tag along to the Russian economy, which is a $2 trillion economy.
Ultimately, I don't see Russia giving the U.S. the scale in terms of that hegemonic battle with China. Europe is the economy that can give the Americans scale.
So we have leverage. We have leverage in the short term in terms of purchases of weapons, big arms procurement deals that can produce, give jobs to Trump in the U.S. economy.
And then longer term, I think it's very hard for the Americans to ignore the sheer scale of the European economy and its ability to help in terms of that hegemonic battle with the Chinese.
And ultimately, if the Americans decide to do something else, then Europe should look for alternatives, right?
It should look to improve its relations with China, it should look for better relations with Turkey and the Gulf states — it should diversify its own national security.
The Kyiv Independent: At least in the short term, is Russia the main winner out of all that's happening at the moment?
Timothy Ash: In respect to Ukraine, you've got to think so, yes. It's extraordinary that Trump went into negotiations with Russia over Ukraine. With a strong negotiating hand — he could have ramped up sanctions, ramped up military supplies to Ukraine, there's lots of stuff to negotiate on territory, NATO membership, and he's given everything away before there's even been any negotiations.
It's quite extraordinary. The Russians must think this is manna from heaven — they just can't believe their luck.
And we've seen that Russia is now going back to its maximalist demands, this idea of the "denazification" of Kyiv, which means regime change, in effect. Ukraine is not a Nazi state, it's a democracy. But the Russians like to push that kind of angle.
And also the demilitarization of Ukraine, which essentially means putting limitations on Ukraine's conventional military capability and its ability to defend itself, because they want to invade again.
Unfortunately, because of Trump's shenanigans, the start of the negotiations has shifted significantly east — we could have started around NATO membership.
Ukraine may not likely have been given NATO membership, but it would have given some leverage for the negotiating team from the West.
And a lot of this is in the context of negotiations around this mineral deal. And there's a chance that the freezing of aid is just a temporary thing and it's all designed to strong arm Zelensky into signing this mineral deal.
The Kyiv Independent: Even if it is a negotiating tactic, it's causing a lot of damage.
Timothy Ash: We've already seen the damage to NATO itself. Faith and trust in NATO, trust in the U.S. as an ally has been very badly damaged. The scenes in the White House may have gone down well with some MAGA supporters in the U.S., but I think, from a world perspective, any foreign observer looking at that would say that this is just another U.S. ally that's been left down.
Let down by the Americans like Afghanistan, like Iraq, like Vietnam… there's a very long list of partners that the Americans have not stood by. I think that's very damaging to the U.S. over the long term.
With the minerals deal, it seems to be the case that Trump wants a quick deal, he wants a quick win. He views the mineral deal as that. He views a ceasefire deal as a quick win.
And Trump's not very good on the detail, right? I think the problem most Europeans have with the White House thinking around a ceasefire is, we've been there before.
We've been there before with Minsk I, Minsk II – numerous ceasefires have been broken (by the Russians).
It's all pretty worrying for Ukraine. Ukraine has a good long-term outlook. Its economic position could be good with EU accession, recovery, and reconstruction bills, but it needs security.
No investor will invest around this minerals deal if they don't feel Ukraine is secure. And how would you ensure security? That's the key question.
The deal itself is not sufficient enough.
The Kyiv Independent: Is there a chance that this could all backfire for the Trump administration?
Timothy Ash: It weakens trust and confidence in the Americans. I would think Europe will be looking for alternatives. And if the Americans come asking for European help against China or another 9/11, I think Europe will say, "no thank you. You made your choices on Ukraine."
And mismanaging this peace process could be politically very damaging for (Trump). This could be, in terms of scale, multiple times more damaging than the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Any deal that doesn't leave Ukraine secure could see the military collapse of Ukraine – the social, economic, and political collapse of Ukraine – and a complete victory of Russia over Ukraine.
And I think that would be a devastating blow to European security and political, social instability also, because I think tens of millions of Ukrainians would move west.
And that would be Trump's responsibility. He would have caused that.
Does he care? Does he really understand any of this? I have my doubts.
Chris York
