February 22, 2025
By Nasser Kandil
U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t need to halt scheduled arms and ammunition shipments to Ukraine to make its president submit to his vision for resolving the conflict with Russia. It was enough for Ukrainians to hear him speak of the futility of continuing the war, the necessity of accepting reality, and the recognition that Ukraine’s new geography is shaped by Russia’s security boundaries. It was enough for them to hear of emerging Russian-American understandings and to notice Washington’s growing displeasure with their president, for Ukraine’s internal front to begin unraveling.
Hope in sustaining the war has all but vanished, even within the Ukrainian army. Morale has collapsed, and the frontlines are crumbling. Where once the Russian army needed a month to seize a new town, it now takes only days. Soon, perhaps, it will require mere hours, or find the frontlines deserted altogether. Meanwhile, Russian airstrikes on Kyiv persist and intensify, while Ukraine’s air defenses stand helpless, not due to technical failure, but because their operators have lost the will to fight, and many have likely abandoned their posts.
The way Ukraine is shedding its defenses resembles autumn’s falling leaves – a pattern seen in wars when armies disintegrate in the final hours before a major defeat. The essence of this collapse is, first and foremost, psychological. Ukraine has been defeated because it no longer believes in continued American support. Now, all that remains is to await the final hour.
Ukraine, like Europe, is paying the price for recklessly provoking Russia – an adventure driven by calculations that had nothing to do with Ukrainian or European interests. Instead, it was part of an American agenda to encircle Russia, using Ukraine as a battlefield and Europe as a logistical rear. In doing so, Europe was stripped of Russian oil and gas, cheap, abundant, and easy to access, while the Minsk Agreement, which could have provided a political solution, was deliberately derailed to drag Russia into war and impose sanctions, all in the hope of forcing its collapse.
But Russia endured. The U.S. grew weary of the war and sought an exit with minimal losses, leaving Europe as the scapegoat and Ukraine as a consolation prize.
Ukraine has become the textbook example of a regime that serves the interests of its foreign masters at the expense of its own nation.
