Alwaght- When the US envoy for Russia and Ukraine Keith Kellogg likened the US decision to cut off intelligence sharing and military aids to Ukraine to "whacking a stubborn mule", all the world looked with surprised eyes to the US-Ukraine alliance falling apart. Washington was the biggest financial and military backer of Kiev in war with Russia just two months ago, but now the same country has left the Eastern European country in the lurch.
The collapse of the American-Ukranian relations after meeting of the leaders of the two countries in the White House last week was obvious and now it is leaving its impacts on Kiev on the battleground.
Russian advances on the battleground
According to the Russian defense ministry, several major cities and towns on the Kursk front, as well as the islands and the entire Dnieper River delta in the Kherson region, have been retaken by the Russian forces in the past 48 hours. The Russian military has been trying to push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region since last year. The Ukrainian military seized large parts of Kursk last summer.
Aerial maps show that Ukraine’s position in Kursk has deteriorated sharply, where its forces are almost surrounded by Russian forces. Pro-Russian war blogger Rudskoy wrote on Telegram on Saturday that Russian forces had launched an attack on Sudza, a large town about 9.5 kilometers from the border, and that the situation of Ukrainian troops in Kursk was close to critical. In an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, Rudskoy said that Russia now controls 75 percent of the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions and more than 99 percent of the Luhansk region in Ukraine.
US capitalizing on Ukraine war
Though the US has now left Ukraine alone in war with Russia, reports and figures suggest that war has not been without profits to the Americans. According to a report recently published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Ukraine war has contributed to the growth of the US dominance on the global arms industry. The American weapons exports between 2020-2024 grew by more than a fifth compared to the previous five-year period, reaching 43 percent of total global exports.
Dr Mathew George, who joined SIPRI in May 2023 as the Director of SIPRI's Arms Transfers Program, believes that the US is in a unique position in terms of arms exports, with its share of global arms exports being more than four times that of the next largest exporter, France.
Deep gap on the two sides of the Atlantic
On the other hand, the Courthouse News Service in an analytical report pointed to the deep and growing rift between Washington and its European allies over the war in Ukraine, which was dramatically revealed and exposed during the events of the third anniversary of the Russian military attack.
Although US President Donald Trump continues to insist on ending the war by normalizing relations with Moscow and reducing military aid to Kiev, Europeans, on the other hand, are not very happy with the way the Ukrainian war ends while Russia managed to seize parts of Ukraine.
Zelensky’s trip to Europe, following his recent spat with Trump in the White House, also showed that there are deep divisions between Europe and the US over how to support Ukraine.
In the European viewpoint, Trump is effectively trying to force Ukraine to accept defeat and cede territory to Russia. In implementing this strategy, he has angered European and Ukrainian leaders by sidelining them in negotiations with Russia over the war in Saudi Arabia on February 18.
The European allies have maintained their aggressive approach to Moscow just contrary to the US that reviewed its policy toward Russia after Trump took the office. In a meeting last week, they reiterated continuing their all-out military, diplomatic, and financial support to Kiev. The European leaders are expected to announce a new aid package to Kiev in the coming days.
This difference of approach between the US and Europe bears witness to a deep gap caused by the Western policy towards the Ukraine war. Whole Europe still stresses on supporting Kiev and maintaining pressure on Moscow, Trump administration's approach leans to direct dialogue with Russia and scaling down backing to Ukraine.
