The U.S. paused all U.S. military aid to Ukraine after a contentious meeting between Trump and Zelensky. The prospect of Washington cutting off support to Kyiv in the face of Russian aggression has prompted European NATO members like Germany, France and the United Kingdom to step up. Europe doesn’t make enough—or in some cases any—of the air-defense systems or long-range rocket artillery that Ukraine relies on like the Patriot and ATACMS.
WSJ breaks down whether European NATO countries have the money, equipment and personnel to fill the gap.
Chapters:
0:00 U.S. pausing military aid
0:38 Defense budgets
2:58 What the U.S. provides
3:42 What NATO countries have
5:56 Boots on the ground
6:39 What’s next?
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32 Comments
The America-sized hole in Ukraine’s war effort: https://on.wsj.com/43yuwIF
The US tears down its global status as the leader of the free world. If you don't want to act like a leader anymore, don't assume that others will follow you. Every day under Trump will deteriorate the US position in the world in the long run. What a shame.
EUROPE MUST PAY
This looks like the end of a long era that started in 1941 with the Lend-Lease Act and saw the USA becoming the arsenal of democracy. European security cannot be mainly enforced and financed by the USA but the timing of the Trump administration is criminally harmful for the country's long-term commitment to deterrence and multilateral security.
Can Nato fill the Gap? Are you serious? who is NATO? Who pays for it?
While I get the fact that the allies post WWII had limitations on the former axis counties on their military, Europe has been complacent and should've rung alarm bells way back in 2014 after annexation of crimea…its their own making.
The US is in a Schizophrenic state, yesterday they help, today they won't, tomorrow they might
war should have been over by now….
why dont europe want peace ? ukraine need to raise flag an give up. Why force whole world send em help when they cant payback and give nothing to any sociaty exept problems and corruption.
The question is, how long is going to take Europe to be self defense ?
Because America has become unreliable ally, military and commercial, we are isolating the United States with the rest of the world, smash is our policy now, the world will get tire of the new tyrant 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Better question, why was there ever a gap?
🤴🏻🤜🏼🇺🇦😳
What the Americans forget is that most of the Military Equipment of NATO is engineerd and bought in America, this was with help and knowledge of European Engineers and Pilots.
What Trump forgets is that this boosted the American Industrie a lot but this will change …. soon !!
Volkswagen, Audi and more European products are not welcome anymore in the US, these factories have now more then enough capacity to speed up producing military equipment …. so … MAGA supports the EU to be selfsupporting in EVERYTHING and leaves America with the pain of a LOST industrie
Trump's hissy fit is getting Ukrainian civilians killed.
I will never forget/forgive what this ignorant narcissist has done to Ukraine.
The only winner of Trump's agressivity (Ukraine, tariff's war, Gaza on the Beach) is Russia.
This is no joke.
Zelensky should steer clear of Putin’s America.
It will just make the war longer and waste many more lives in the process, but yes, the european and other NATO allies can compensate the US capitulation.
Wsj why's don't you helped Ukraine you stolen money's from usaid 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮
This is how naive democrats are about war. This conversation should have happened years ago.
China and Russia, Iran. Had this conversation years ago.
China, Russia, Iran to hold joint naval exercises this week. They're not going to hide it anymore.
Does anyone think Ukraine has a chance of winning anything under what is left of their coalition? To see what is left also watch "Coalition of the k*lling" by George Galloway in MOATS, and “War is Coming. Europe isn’t Ready” by Warfronts.
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Instead of Ukraine insensibly losing lives in territories they cannot maintain like after invading an undefended Kursk they lost 50% of it in the first 6 months then 25% more in the next 2 months, the sensible option for Zelensky is to democratically say: if Russia agrees to an immediate ceasefire then he would order the immediate withdraw of all troops from Kursk and the 5 Annexed Oblasts then within 90 days hold elections in the rest of Ukraine for the people of Ukraine to hear peace proposal debates then vote on a President to immediately negotiate a more permanent peace settlement.
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Otherwise, it is perhaps time for Ukraine to conditionally surrender before being forced into an unconditional surrender because there is no way Russia is going to again fall for a temporary ceasefire at the line of contact with a pretext of Europe trying to again stall for time to build up military as they did in Minsk.
It is useless to emphasis the word aggression or invasion when the first military shot of the conflict was after Kyiv attacked their own citizens in the multicultural Donbass region – as if it is ok for the U.S. to attack multicultural Chinatown in NW D.C. – then reneged on peace settlements signed in Minsk and initialed in Antalya/Istanbul.
After the calamitous events in the oval office with the insolent leader of Ukraine trying to embarrass the U.S. President, followed by travelling to London and stating F* Trump then calling Vance a B*, the U.S. Citizens, and especially those in the current and past U.S. Military, should at minimum stay neutral, or abandon support for Zelensky.
Even before the oval office disaster, Zelensky ordered to have civilians chased down on the streets and thrown in vans to be used as cannon fodder on the front lines, canceled elections, shut down Independent media, arrested opposition candidates, jailed an America reporter whom later mysteriously died in prison, and purportedly resold U.S. weapons to U.S. enemies with the proceeds being used to buy private luxury estates abroad.
No U.S. Military aid? No intelligence sharing? StarLink going down? It's over, let's not be in denial like Ukraine and most of Europe trying to belatedly save face when sandwiched with opposition to their east and west. Russia has no fear of the paltry military of Europe, and like in WWII, are willing to continue the fight with 10x+ more casualties then celebrate their heroism with a Victory Day Parade in perpetuity.
Zelensky says he is aware of everything however is he aware Russia has more weapons reserves, even smart weapons in reserve such as Oreshnik, Zircon, Kinzhal, Iskander, Tornado, Krasnopol, and more glide kits for heavy gravity bombs? Has he even heard of the unstoppable Avangard? Is he aware the missile seeking range on Russia’s latest gen jets far exceeds everything he has or can obtain? Is he aware Russia has substantially increased their drone production of different varieties?
Russia also has more weapons manufacturing capacity to maintain the reserves, plus they just mobilized 300k+ more troops. If Russia wants to end this war more quickly, they can quickly swap out some missile tips and go tactical nuclear to immediately force an unconditional surrender. It is staggering how the citizens of Ukraine can let Zelensky keep gambling with their lives when his long shot odds cannot even reach all of Russian territory.
The perilous fate of Ukraine is sealed and their lives are about to get a lot worse. It is time for the Ukraine citizens to rise up and adamantly demand Zelensky to resign, and if he does not, then overthrow their incompetent leader before more Ukraine lives are carelessly lost. After Zelensky lost support from his most ardent U.S. Republican in Lindsey Graham, Zelensky has no chance of getting more aid through Congress, and especially not past veto power from Trump.
Even if the U.S. were to turn back in support of Ukraine and wanted to give more weapons, the U.S. does not have many more weapons to supply. The U.S. Military leaders are already complaining about reserves. Most of the last batch of weapons aid for Ukraine is still being manufactured at a pace slower than Russia. It is really over for Ukraine.
I would not be surprised if Ukraine not only expectedly loses Kursk and the Russian annexes, loses Sumy, Kharkiv, and all land east of the Dneiper (Dnipro) river. Next up, perhaps Russia has their eyes on the Russian cultured region of Odessa to leave Ukraine as a land locked stub State.
If Ukraine is still in denial, and if Russia wants to take all of Ukraine, Russia will perhaps offer Poland some of Poland’s historical territories in Ukraine, and if accepted, they call Belarus and let them know it is time to take the rest of Ukraine however not to make it all Russia, carve out some as a neutral territory and replace their NATO bias with neutral leadership.
Trump is doing exactly what Russia and China want by dividing the Western world instead of uniting it. This will not be forgotten, and I would expect EU weapons production to increase drastically, while American arms exports will decline significantly over the next decade — costing you far more than supporting Ukraine ever would.
The U.S. also faces a massive long-term challenge with China. How do you plan to handle that alone?
United we stand, divided we fall.
Germany recently stated that they can fulfill that role by 2030. Ukraine will cease to exist if they have to wait that long.
Thanks for a balanced report, certainly makes a change from the constant Orange Man Bad rhetoric.
1789–2025 “Donald Trump is the first American president who is not the leader of the free world.”
236 years of history thrown in the trash.
Now, America will not be synonymous with freedom, but with treason.
sad to see america giving up on ukraine
Is Europe ready to sanction China for assistance to Russia?
No 4d chess here. Just a child throwing a tantrum.
COLLECTIVELY
😂😂😂💩💩💩💩 shitz blitz ….😅😅😅😅 EU Gone with the winds…😅😅😅😅
Suddenly blowing trillions on all that woke stuff for years doesn't look so clever for European countries now does it…..
I doubt it.
A continent of 500 million people wants a country of 300 million to defend them against a country of 140 million. Entitled doesn't even begin to describe it.