Thursday 15 October 2026

News

/Editorial

Trump is abandoning Ukraine to its bleakest winter yet

Battered by President Putin’s war of terror and apparently losing crucial support from US intelligence and Elon Musk’s Starlink, Kyiv’s brave citizens are closer to cracking than they have been since the start of the war

The Russian assault on Ukraine is now well into its fifth bloody year. It is increasingly moving off the battlefields of Donbas, where, despite great numerical superiority, Vladimir Putin’s army is making little – if any – progress against its smaller but braver and more professional enemy.

Instead, the Kremlin’s strategy is increasingly to wage a war of terror against the civilian population of Ukraine. It is cruel and cowardly, violating the rules of war and international conventions. But such concerns have never troubled President Putin.

Ukraine is, to all intents and purposes, actually winning the war on the ground, gaining territory and certainly in no danger of being routed by the Russians. Yet the fear, especially as the capital Kyiv becomes a renewed focus of the attacks, is that the resolve of the Ukrainian people will crack under the pressure, forcing Volodymyr Zelensky’s government to capitulate.

That is why this apparent sickening betrayal of the Ukrainians by the Trump administration and Elon Musk is so terribly tragic and sad.

There may be some technical reasons why US intelligence about Russian incoming aerial bombardments failed to reach the Ukrainian authorities in time to sound the air raid alerts. There may also be some innocent explanation for the partial loss of Ukrainian access to Mr Musk’s Starlink satellites over Russian territory.

Yet at any rate, even as a coincidence, the events of the past 48 hours have rendered Ukrainian cities and their residents – non-combatants in every sense – virtually defenceless in the face of Russian aggression. To use the cliche, such matters are gamechangers. If Kyiv really has lost the support of the Americans in sharing intelligence and guiding Ukrainian counterattacks against Russian strategic military and infrastructure, it becomes far more difficult to hold the Russians back on the domestic front as Ukraine’s cities are pummelled day after day, week after week without an end in sight.

Even if the Europeans wished to – and their resolve has sometimes been found wanting – they simply lack the intelligence networks and missile defence systems that the Ukrainian side so desperately needs to ameliorate and survive these onslaughts.

Whether Donald Trump understands this, or cares, must be in doubt. He seems once more to have fallen more completely under the spell of President Putin, to whom he has expressed public gratitude for the “diesel deal”, a politically helpful symbolic move for the Republicans ahead of the midterm elections, even if it will not cut the cost of fuel much – if at all.

Indeed, Mr Trump seems to have returned to his default view that Mr Zelensky is the problem, and that Ukraine should “get itself a new president”. In return, Mr Putin displays contempt for America by immediately and persistently violating the “energy ceasefire” Mr Trump has been trying to impose on both sides.

Yet the continuing Russian destruction of civilian power supplies in Ukraine passes without any rebuke from the White House. It seems not to have occurred to Mr Trump that such humiliation of his country by the Kremlin might go down badly even among his Maga base (especially if the price of diesel doesn’t soon dive sharply downwards, which it won’t). Mr Trump looks like a dupe as well as callous.

Almost from the earliest days of Mr Putin’s “special military operation”, terror has been part of Russian strategy, up to and including the abduction of Ukrainian children. Apartment blocks have long been a favourite target for Russian drones and missiles. It has never been random. It is worse than that. Once again, as a long and bitter winter approaches, Russia is targeting supplies of domestic gas, electricity and water, and doing so on an unprecedented scale.

All of this will be made far worse if US intelligence and satellite access continue to be denied. The ultimate disaster of defeat for Ukraine edges closer, even without their troops surrendering an inch of territory. One hope is that the few Western leaders Mr Trump still has time for, such as Giorgia Meloni of Italy, can persuade him to change course; or that a change in control of Congress after the 3 November elections can force him into a rethink, starting with the cancellation of the Russian diesel deal, which remains unlawful under the recently passed Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

Gestures of solidarity, such as Andy Burnham’s invitation to President Zelensky to visit Downing Street, are valuable but need to be backed by tangible military and financial aid.

Perhaps somebody close to Mr Trump – his son-in-law and chief negotiator Jared Kushner, or the First Lady – will convince him that his best chance of a Nobel Peace Prize is to stop talking about ending wars, and actually make the Russians stop their murderous destruction of the Ukrainian nation.

The more likely outcome is the bleakest winter for the people of Ukraine since this war began. It will take all their spirit to get through it, but they know that occupation would be worse.

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