March 4, 2025 (EIRNS)—Not surprisingly, fear and panic are gripping Kiev following the White House announcement that the U.S. would be pausing military aid to Ukraine. Ukraine’s former Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk said the White House was trying to “bully” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into accepting a bad peace deal on Moscow’s brutal terms. If Kiev did not agree, U.S. military aid would be halted permanently, he predicted. “I think this is extremely wrong on all different levels,” Zagorodnyuk told London’s The Guardian. He added: “Also it will not work with Ukraine. Ukraine will never bend to bullies, and to bullying. It’s as simple as that.”
Ukrainian journalists and commentators noted bitterly that Trump had so far demanded no concessions from Vladimir Putin, The Guardian further reports. The White House’s latest punitive move against Ukraine would lead to “joy in Moscow,” they claimed. Instead of acting as a mediator, President Donald Trump has sought to squeeze and humiliate Ukraine and force it into territorial concessions that would benefit the Kremlin, they said.
“On the surface, this looks really bad. It seems like he is forcing us toward capitulation, meaning [accepting] Russia’s demands,” Oleksandr Merezhko, head of Ukraine’s unicameral Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation, told Reuters.
The Ukrainian army will primarily face shortages of missiles for its air defense systems and shells for HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, due to the suspension of U.S. aid, according to Verkhovna Rada member Oleksiy Goncharenko. (TASS notes parenthetically that Goncharenko is listed by Russia as a terrorist and extremist.) “First of all, the suspension of aid from the United States may impact missiles for air defense, as well as ammunition for HIMARS and artillery,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
The Ukrainian army will suffer “a severe blow” from the United States’ suspension of military aid, Verkhovna Rada member Iryna Gerashchenko said. “If the U.S. suspends military assistance to Ukraine, it will be an immense and tangible blow to the front. We must do everything to prevent or remedy it,” she wrote on Telegram. Gerashchenko called on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to immediately hold a meeting with legislators and present a Plan B on “how to survive without U.S. assistance.”
