UKRAINE WEEKLY – Olha Rudenko Editor-in-Chief
March 8, 2025

Hello and welcome to Ukraine Weekly, where I summarize the week for you and offer some reflections.

As you likely know, we had another week dominated by the fallout of U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuing policy shift on Ukraine and Russia. Trump’s disastrous meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday cast a long shadow.

When he kicked Zelensky out of the White House for “disrespecting America” by reminding its leaders that Russia is keen on violating peace agreements (we had a story about it, linked below), Trump canceled the signing of the minerals deal between the U.S. and Ukraine.
I said in this newsletter last week that the parties will likely still sign the deal but in a low-key way, without an in-person meeting of the presidents. It seems that that’s where it is heading now.

To make sure that Ukraine has no way out of signing, Trump went for perhaps the cruelest option he had. On Monday, he ordered a pause on the U.S. military aid to Ukraine. One may think it means mostly that Ukrainian soldiers will be out of weapons – but in reality, it’s worse and more brutal. As our story this week explained, the aid halt will be felt by civilians faster than by the military, particularly in regard to air defense systems protecting our cities. Additionally, the U.S. stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine.

Let me explain what it means here, on the ground. Russia has been attacking Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles every night. Drones are much cheaper, so they come more often and in large quantities. Lately, Russia has launched drone attacks every night. On Thursday night, Russia conducted a mass attack on energy sites around Ukraine that involved drones and missiles.

It is because of the constant work of air defense crews that these attacks lead to very limited casualties. If Russia were to target Ukrainian cities and we had no air defense, let’s just say, this newsletter would probably stop coming to you. I live in central Kyiv and now feel relatively safe even when it gets loud – because I have trust in our air defense, the trust that has come after many nights of repelled attacks. With U.S. aid and intelligence sharing on halt, Ukrainian cities are facing a new level of danger. (Perhaps someone should tell Trump that it endangers those “beautiful golden domes” on tops of churches that he seems to be fond of, as he has mentioned them a few times).

Later in the week, following Russia’s mass aerial attack, Trump acknowledged that Russia “has been bombing the hell out of Ukraine” but in the very same speech, paradoxically, confirmed that he believes that Putin wants to achieve peace. He also said that he finds it more difficult to deal with Ukraine than with Russia. That’s not surprising, since he has so far made no demands of Russia nor set any conditions, at least publicly, instead handing everything it wants on a silver platter – such as the promise that Ukraine won’t join NATO.

As for the minerals deal, although Trump said that he now wants “a bigger and better” deal, according to our sources in the Ukrainian government, as of two days ago, there was no talk of changing the earlier agreed deal, but the signing date wasn’t clear.

On the front line, Russia is conducting a counteroffensive in Kursk Oblast, where Ukraine has held land since August. The timing of the Russian assault seems related to the developments in Washington. At the very minimum, Russia is seeking to retake its land to take away a major bargaining chip that Ukraine would try to use in peace negotiations. In a more pessimistic view, they might be doing it now because the cut of U.S. aid and intel sharing gave them a window of opportunity.

Everything that the U.S. has done so far regarding Ukraine seems to be aimed at weakening its position before the negotiations with Russia.

I spent most of the week on the road, traveling to London and Brussels for a couple of events. My conversations with British and EU citizens were dominated by the topic of Trump and his motives for siding with Russia. More and more often, I hear people asking, “But why would he do that, if only he’s not a Russian asset himself?” I don’t know what to say to that.

Here’s another thing I observed. People were very keen on offering words of support and indignation with the U.S. administration’s moves, but I couldn’t help but feel that they are doing it in a sort of a defeated tone. As if the underlying message was: “You folks put up a great fight. Shame things are turning out like this.” It made me think of the days before the full-scale invasion, when some conversations with foreigners felt like a farewell.

But the mood in Ukraine is far from defeated. It’s tense, stressed, angry, focused, but not defeated – I honestly don’t sense it anywhere around me. If only we could channel it to our European friends.

Our European friends, meanwhile, are scrambling to offer more security support for Ukraine. This week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced an ambitious plan for the rearmament of Europe. But it’s not something that can be delivered fast enough to benefit Ukraine now as it’s being left alone by the U.S. The outcome of the special summit in Brussels this Thursday was also underwhelming, with European leaders saying things like “the best guarantee (for Ukraine) are the Ukrainians themselves.” That’s not really helpful if Ukrainians don’t have the weapons and intelligence to defend themselves.

Another thing that I was asked multiple times on this trip this week is whether “life goes on” in Ukraine. Oh yes, it does, but it’s full of contrasts. For example, on Friday night, I went to my best friend’s bachelorette party. It wasn’t anything crazy, just a dinner with a few girlfriends, wine, and lots of stories about the bride’s ex-boyfriends, but it was great. The next morning, today, I woke up to the news that overnight, Russia attacked Dopropillia, a town near the front line where our journalists sometimes stay when they go on their reporting trips. It was a vicious attack that targeted a residential area. Eleven people were killed, and over 50 were injured.

That’s just one simple example of the contrasts we live through every day. Does our life “go on”? For sure, it does, but it isn’t the same, and I don’t think it will ever be as it was before the war.

On this note, I’m wrapping up this week’s issue of Ukraine Weekly. Thank you for reading and for all the words of support you’ve been sending us. It means a lot. I can’t answer every email, but I do read them all.

As always, if you’ve been finding this newsletter useful, you can support the work of the Kyiv Independent. We are funded by our readers like you. You can back us by becoming a member (which means offering a small monthly donation) or making a one-time contribution (both options are available here).

The membership option helps us more and comes with benefits, so I’d go for that one. When you support us, your contributions are processed by a third-party payment system, and we have no access to your bank data.

Thank you for reading. Let’s catch up again next Saturday?

Best,

Olha

**** Note : this was posted on FB. I could not locate the original. Olha Rudrnko is Editor-in-Chief of the Kyiv Independent.