Explained | How soon could Ukraine’s forces ‘start to buckle’ without US weapons?

Without billions of dollars in American-made weapons, it may be only a matter of time before Ukraine’s forces falter against Russia.

How much time, however, depends on how quickly Europe and Ukraine can make up for the artillery, missiles, air-defense systems and other arms that Trump administration officials said Monday were being put on hold.

The United States had committed to delivering as much as $11 billion in weapons and equipment to Ukraine this year. Some of it was from Pentagon stockpiles, while some was ordered through new defense contracts, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. A former senior US defense official Tuesday said the actual figure was likely closer to $9 billion.

Despite Europe’s pledges of unwavering support for Ukraine, which have only intensified since the Trump administration began pulling back, it would be nearly impossible for it to fill the weapons gap quickly. European defense industries have ramped up, but only in fits and starts. And individual countries need to maintain their own weapons stockpiles.

“Europe can’t possibly replace American aid,” the former deputy of Ukraine’s military general staff, Lt. Gen. Ihor Romanenko, said last month.

Ukraine has been churning out drones and building up domestically made artillery systems, and it plans to spend 26 per cent of its budget on defense this year. But some top Ukrainian officials say the military will be in dire straits if US support is not restarted.

“Ukraine definitely has a safety margin of about six months even without systematic assistance from the United States, but it will be much more difficult, of course,” one lawmaker, Fedir Venislavskyi, told news agency RBC-Ukraine on Tuesday.

Some analysts say they think even that may be overly optimistic.

“Certainly, by the four-month time period, their forces would start to buckle, because they just wouldn’t have enough munitions and equipment to replace what they’ve lost,” said one of the authors of the Center for Strategic and International Studies study, Mark F. Cancian, a former White House weapons strategist.

Why can’t Europe fill the gap?

Of the $136 billion in military aid that allies provided Ukraine from the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022 to the end of last year, nearly half came from the United States, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research organization.

The American share has dwindled over time as the defense industries in Ukraine and Europe have accelerated production. Only about 20 per cent of military hardware currently supplied to Ukraine comes from the United States, according to recent estimates by the Royal United Services Institute, an analytical group affiliated with the British military.

“But the 20 per cent is the most lethal and important,” said Malcolm Chalmers, the institute’s deputy director general. Ukraine won’t abruptly collapse without the US weapons, Chalmers predicted. “The effect,” he said, “will be cumulative.”

The United States, the world’s largest economy, simply has more resources at its disposal. Its Air Force, for example, has 17 large electronic surveillance aircraft, while Britain has only three, according to Douglas Barrie, a military aerospace expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. The United States contributes more than half of all NATO’s fighter jets and ground-attack aircraft.

Citing the “short-term urgency to act,” the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Tuesday announced a $841 billion plan to increase defense budgets across Europe and encourage joint procurement among states to speed weapons manufacturing. But previous efforts have fallen short, with EU countries pulled between domestic spending priorities and defense contractors unable to produce vast amounts of costly weapons without upfront capital.

Von der Leyen seemed to acknowledge this.

“The real question in front of us is whether Europe is prepared to act as decisively as the situation dictates, and whether Europe is ready and able to act with speed and with the ambition that is needed,” she said.

Artillery production in Europe is now nearly able to keep up with the wartime demands, said Camille Grand, who was NATO’s assistant secretary-general for defense investment when Russia invaded. That is a remarkable turnabout for an industry that had atrophied after the end of the Cold War in 1991.

But manufacturers of more advanced weapons such as the air defenses Ukraine says are crucial to its survival are still struggling to quickly produce those systems in large numbers. It can take years to hire and train additional workers, expand factory space and obtain rare earths and other raw materials in a competitive market that has been slowed by a limited supply chain.

And industry executives say they cannot invest in those improvements without the guarantee of contracts that generally run for at least a decade and that some governments have been unwilling to provide.

“We are not on a real war economy footage as we speak, certainly by comparison with Russia,” said Grand, now a weapons expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He said it would take more political will in Europe to get defense contracts rolling: “Money is not sufficient to solve everything.”

What is Ukraine doing to arm itself?

Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, insisted on social media this week that “of course, our military, the government, have the capabilities, the tools to maintain the situation on the front line.” But he would not disclose what is left in Ukraine’s stockpile, likely to prevent exposing any vulnerabilities to Russia.

Shmyhal said that Ukraine would be able to produce enough artillery for itself by later this year, and that it was building its own armored vehicles and antitank weapons. Last year, Ukraine built more than 1 million first-person-view drones and intends to increase production in 2025.

Ukraine is also reportedly trying to produce air defenses as sophisticated as the American-made Patriot system, which can intercept ballistic missiles. Each Patriot system — consisting of interceptor missiles, launchers, radar and a command center — can cost $1 billion and takes up to two years to build.

Of the seven Patriot air defense systems that the United States and Germany have given Ukraine, at least two have been destroyed, according to weapons tracking site Oryx. Shorter-range air defenses have been sent by Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania, among others.

But Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe, and the Russian bombardment has been incessant. “You’re always going to have to pick and choose — you aren’t going to be able to defend against everything,” said Barrie, the military aerospace expert.

‘Doomed?’

In his study, titled “Is Ukraine Now Doomed?” Cancian predicted that without US military aid, Ukraine would be forced to accept an unfavorable ceasefire agreement with Russia. That might mean ceding a fifth of its territory and giving up its aspirations to join NATO.

And some allies might now decide to cut back their own aid, reasoning that without American support, “this is a lost cause,” Cancian said in an interview.

Along with the suspended military aid, the Trump administration also paused sharing intelligence with Ukraine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in an interview with Fox Business News on Wednesday. He predicted that the pause “will go away” if President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine shows more willingness to work on President Donald Trump’s plan for a ceasefire with Russia.

Fears also have been raised recently that Ukraine will lose access to the Starlink satellite internet system that facilitates military communication and is owned by Elon Musk, Trump’s close ally.

But it is clear that “halting security assistance will only make it more challenging for Ukraine to reach a just and lasting end to this war,” said David Shimer, who was the National Security Council’s director for Eastern Europe and Ukraine during the Biden administration.

“It will reduce Ukraine’s leverage, weaken the Ukrainian military and therefore undermine Ukraine’s negotiating position with Russia,” Shimer said. “The United States should be focused on strengthening, not weakening, Ukraine’s hand ahead of a negotiation.”