Could Nato support Ukraine if the US left the alliance? ...Middle East

European leaders face a new reality that Ukraine’s defence against Russia faces being without the military and intelligence support of the United States, Nato’s most powerful member.

Donald Trump on 3 March paused military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv, dealing a catastrophic blow to Ukraine’s front line.

The intelligence gap, experts said, was almost instantly felt as Russia struck key infrastructure on successive nights with Ukraine unable to preempt or counter the missile bombardments.

Trump’s public animosity towards Ukraine and Zelensky – culminating in a bust up with the Ukrainian President in the Oval Office – and his seeming willingness to side with Vladimir Putin has led many European leaders to make a fundamental reassessment of the realistic support required by the war-torn ally.

Europe will have to scramble to pick up the slack and fill the void left by the Trump administration with many states now upping defence spending.

The US has been the main provider of intelligence for Ukraine throughout the conflict, supplying signals intelligence, satellite imagery and targeting data used to hit Russian positions.

The only other countries in the Nato alliance with any serious intelligence capabilities of which to provide Ukraine are the UK, France and Germany. But the allies’ pooled resources are unlikely to be able to match the scope and scale of the US.

Rod Thornton, a Russian military expert at King’s College London, said “simply the Europeans can’t step up to match the ability of the Americans to provide intelligence.”

Keir Starmer hosted a summit of 19 nations to discuss peace in Ukraine over the weekend (Photo: Justin Tallis/AFP)

Kyiv no longer has access to crucial intelligence needed to stop incoming attacks, including radar systems and satellite imagery to detect Russian movements and preempt where the next bombardment is coming from, he explained.

“The Americans were previously using intelligence means to provide warning to the Ukrainians that stuff was on the way and then they could then take defensive manoeuvres,” Thornton told The i Paper. Europe does not have the access to the same quality of intelligence that would replace the gap left by the US, he added.

“Yes, the Europeans do have some intelligence capabilities, but very few satellites,” Thornton continued. “And even then the British and the French would have to kind of reorganise their satellites so they’re covering the Ukrainian and Russian battle space, and that’s not easy to do.”

“But the Americans have lots and lots of satellites,” which Nato has “always been reliant” on the US providing, Thornton explained.

“It’s not just bad for the Ukrainians, it’s also bad for the British and French, and all the other Nato countries, that in essence it would appear that the Americans are not being part of Nato, as they once were.”

Russian on Thursday launched large-scale missile and drone bombardment on Ukraine‘s energy infrastructure, wounding 10 people, including a child, and disrupting critical heating and water supplies.

A night later the Kremlin forces launched ballistic missiles, multiple rockets, and drones on Ukraine’s eastern city of Dobropillia and a settlement in Kharkiv region overnight, killing at least 14 and wounding dozens more.

Military aid

While some experts believe Ukraine will have enough munitions stockpiles to last a few months, losing billions of dollars in American-made weapons will likely mean it is only a matter of time before Kyiv’s forces start to buckle.

Ukraine has depended heavily on US military aid since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. The US has been Ukraine’s single largest military donor, having delivered or allocated over £52bn worth of aid since January 2022, data by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows. Europe’s military aid amounts to just over £50bn.

While simultaneously plugging the hole in US intelligence, European leaders will have to rapidly make up the shortfall in artillery, missiles and air-defence systems to offer Ukraine any chance of defence.

The European Commission has already made efforts to fill the gap, proposing on Tuesday to borrow up to 150bn euros (£126bn) to lend to EU governments under a rearmament plan amid fears that Europe can no longer be sure of US protection.

The fund would prioritise supply of air defence, missiles and drones as part of a wider package of proposals that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said could mobilise up to 800bn euros (£671bn) for European defence.

Via the the International Fund for Ukraine, the UK agreed a £30million package which will see Altius 600m and 700m system, made by US company Anduril, supplied to Ukraine. The systems will monitor an area before striking targets entering the its zone.

Dr Matthew Ford, a war studies expert from the Swedish Defence University, said the EU’s proposed funding was for “Ukraine to fight on and also to rebuild European stocks having given away so much European equipment to Ukraine already”.

Despite the huge funding boost, he warned that European nations face “the challenges of not having spent the last three years building up the land warfare industrial supply base, a manufacturing base and supply chains”.

He said: “The net result of that is presently Europe cannot fill the shortfall in shell usage that the Ukrainians are firing at the Russians every year.”

The Ukrainians are currently firing at least 5,000 artillery shells each day, or more than two million shells each year, according to estimates. The US has provided more than three million of these, according to the State Department, while the EU last year provided one million. It will have to ramp up its production to supply Ukraine with the necessary munitions it needs.

“What you’re looking at is Europe having to come up with additional shells – and that’s before they rebuild their own stocks,” Ford said. “Without that restocking you’d have weakened conventional deterrence needed to deter Russia from invading the Baltic.”

“The dilemma is a function of western Europe not taking seriously the problem of not having a sufficient supply chain for defending Ukraine should the US elect Trump – and that’s what they did, and now where we are.”

As US Defense Department fact sheet from January this year, stated that from 2023 to 2024, Ukraine increased its total domestic production of mortar and artillery ammunition—ranging from 60mm to 155mm calibers—from 1 million rounds to 2.5 million rounds annually (150 per cent increase).

Officials from 20 European and Commonwealth countries came together last week to discuss the new reality of defending Ukraine without US military aid and engage in talks about a possible peacekeeping coalition as part of a ceasefire agreement.

Trump has suggested that he is not interested in providing a security guarantee in the form of US troops on the ground. He insisted the presence of American companies exploiting Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals will be enough to keep Russia at bay. It will likely fall to Europe to provide such a backstop.

Not all the countries interested in the plan would necessarily provide troops to a peacekeeping force but they could potentially contribute in other ways.

While it is unlikely that any peace deal would involve any serious number of European troops in Ukraine due to Russia’s insistence, such a military would still be a formidable force in theory.

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky at their ill-fated meeting in the White House last week (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Turkey has Nato’s second largest army after the United States, standing at 355,200 active military personnel, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance 2025. France stands at 202,200, Germany at 179,850, Poland at 164,100, Italy at 161,850, the United Kingdom at 141,100, followed by Greece at 132,000 and Spain at 122,200.

“The question is whether European troops are going to be sufficient and the right sort to be able to step into Ukraine and do some kind of task but effectively create some form of tripwire should the Russians choose to attack.

Ford said the main concern would be sustaining the European troops in Ukraine.

Former national security adviser and cabinet secretary Lord Mark Sedwill said if boots are put on the ground, it could be a commitment of “many years”, warning that the UK would “have to be willing to display strategic patience”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster on Saturday: ” If our adversaries […] believe they can just wait us out”, then, “we will not succeed”.

“So we have to be willing to sustain such an effort for potentially quite a long period,” he said. “Could be many years”.

US leaving Nato not the ‘end of the world’?

Donald Trump has repeatedly made his dissatisfaction with the Nato alliance known, arguing that the pact is overly dependent on the US’s finances and munitions.

During his first term, the US President talked about the prospect of abandoning the collective defence agreement altogether before recently casting doubt yet again whether he would defend Nato allies “if they don’t pay”.

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British peacekeepers could be in Ukraine for decades, ex-Nato chief warns

Former defence secretary Ben Wallace suggested on Saturday that the US exiting the Nato agreement would not be the “end of the world”, as he urged Europe to provide its own security and become less dependant on an “unpredictable” White House.

“I think we are already witnessing a new era, an era where we cannot take for granted US security guarantees,” Wallace told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Now I deeply regret that and they have been the cornerstone of Nato and European security. If they were to pull out of Nato, undoubtedly we would be in a very different world.”

Wallace continued: “That isn’t the end of the world if they pull out of Nato. Of course, it’s horrific. But we have the will in Europe and the money to fix our own security and defence.”

It comes after Trump on Friday said he was finding it “easier” to deal with Russia than Ukraine, ahead of negotiations with Kyiv in Saudi Arabia next week. He also said Putin was “doing what anybody else would do” by intensifying missile barrages against Ukraine.

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