Hans Petter Midttun  

Nonresident fellow hos Centre of Defence Strategies

• Centre of Defence Strategies
• The Norwegian National Defence College

Norway

Mar 02, 2025

“You don’t have the cards right now,” Trump told President Zelensky. “You’re gambling with millions of lives.” “Your country’s in big trouble.” “You’re not winning.”

One of the biggest takeaways from Friday’s meeting at the Oval Office is that Trump indirectly encouraged Putin to uphold his war effort. He told Putin that Ukraine is being defeated. The strategic message has since been reinforced by a representative from the Trump administration saying, “that Trump may decide to stop even indirect support for Ukraine, which includes other forms of military funding, intelligence sharing, the training of Ukrainian military personnel and pilots”. Stating that “It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this,” Trump again indicates his intention to abandon Ukraine.

Another key message – illustrating how the US is aligning itself with Russia – was the horrendous claim that Ukraine is to be blamed for the risk of WW3. The victim of an unjustified and unprovoked full-scale war, fighting for its very existence and protecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity in line with the UN Charter, was falsely accused of “gambling with millions of lives.” He criticised Zelensky while praising Putin. Trump even had the audacity to say that Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace, ludicrously arguing that Putin wants it.

If Putin wanted peace, he only needed to stop fighting and withdraw his forces to achieve peace. Several Western intelligence agencies are stating that Putin is not seeking peace. He is still aiming to defeat and subjugate Ukraine, and Trump has just empowered him.

“Your country’s in big trouble.” “You’re not winning,” Trump said. In January, I argued that “Russia is heading for a strategic defeat in 2025 because it is being defeated at sea, in the air, in space and cyberspace. Its war on land will slowly grind to a halt because of the massive losses of weapons, equipment and not least, manpower. Trends across 5 of 6 warfighting domains are increasingly negative and unsustainable.” With the support of the West, Ukraine was defeating Russia.

Russia is losing momentum as its combat activity is decreasing.  It only occupied 192 km2 of new territory in February, marking a decline compared to previous months. The speed of advance is comparable to last July. Still, the enemy continues to suffer huge manpower losses. In the shortest month of the year, Ukrainian defenders destroyed the largest number of Russian vehicles since the start of the full-scale invasion: 3,472 vehicles and tankers, as well as 596 armoured combat vehicles. In addition, 331 Russian tanks were destroyed or damaged. Over the past seven months, this is the highest rate of Russian losses in this category of weapons and military equipment.

Ukraine has been defeating Russia with the help of the US and Europe. Today, Europe needs to step in and fill the gap left by a former ally. It needs to consider a fundamental new approach.

Political cartoon: unable to identify