Understanding Trump’s Seemingly Evolving Stance On Russia-Ukraine War

Is It Viable To Help Ukraine Retake All Of Its Lost Territory From Russia?

In theory, it is indeed possible for Ukraine to push the Russian military completely out of its territory “with time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO…” as suggested by President Trump. The question, however, is if Europe and NATO have the wherewithal needed to accomplish this?

As it was suggested by the Author in a previous article published in April 2024, when Biden administration was conducting the US’ foreign and security affairs, Ukrainian military, with the help of sufficient number of hard-hitting long-range munitions, can take out all of Russia’s fortified command and control centers as well as key logistics nodes and related infrastructure like bridges, all deep behind front lines.

This would enable the Ukrainian ground troops to breach the Russian lines much easily than before, making it possible to regain a significant amount of lost ground from the Russian military occupation in a very short span of time.

The suggestion at the time, was made by the Author based on Ukraine’s effective use of the US’ Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in October 2023 against two Russian airbases at Berdyansk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which took out several Russian helicopters, ammunition, and equipment at these bases.

However, after having made that suggestion, the Author had also posed a question, which was that whether the US has enough ATACMS needed to help Ukraine regain all of its territory.

While the US had 364 cluster variants of ATACMS at the time, which the US Army no longer uses, it did not have enough ATACMS with unitary warheads to spare for Ukraine, which the US Army still uses, and without the unitary warheads, an undertaking as significant as driving the Russian forces out of Ukraine cannot even be thought of.

The same question remains even now. Can the US provide Ukraine as many long-range munitions with unitary warheads as are needed for its armed forces to retake all of Ukrainian territory from the Russian military occupation, without compromising its own military preparedness?

So, it all comes down to numbers whether it is possible to help Ukraine push the Russian military entirely out of its territory or force the Russians to come to the negotiating table where the latter agrees to cease all hostilities in exchange for being able to retain de-facto control over the portions of the Ukrainian territory that its armed forces currently hold.

For now, the Author remains of the view that the second option of freezing the Ukraine conflict along the current frontline is the only viable option for the Trump administration if it intends to maintain the US’ own military preparedness needed to contend with China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific, a region of first order security priority for the United States.

Several media reports have emerged in recent months shedding light on the US’ dwindling stockpile of munitions as well as the constraints being faced by its military industrial base to meet the US’ own demand for weapons in the event of a high-intensity conflict with a near peer power like China.³

Also, in addition to increasing domestic stockpiles, the US may in the near future have to increase its weapons sales to allies in the Indo-Pacific.  

Therefore, considering China’s intention to surpass the US as a pre-eminent power, together with Russia’s failure to takeover Ukraine completely and its enormous losses throughout its ongoing war with the latter, Europe cannot be a first order priority for the US from security perspective.

Moreover, Russia has also been strategically improving its relations with China thereby creating avenues for itself to create problems for the US in the Indo-Pacific. So, from the US’ perspective, Sino-Russian alliance is as much a danger to its pre-eminence in the world as is Russian hegemony over Europe, which no longer remains realistically possible.

The Author believes that Trump understands this, based on the US President’s recent description of the Russian military as ‘Paper Tiger’ as well as his concerted efforts to improve US-Russia relations since taking office at the start of this year with the intention of pulling Russia away from China.

Tanmay Kadam is a geopolitical observer based in India. He has experience working as a Defense and International Affairs journalist for EurAsian Times. He can be contacted at tanmaykadam700@gmail.com.

References

1. Yongchang Chin, Indian Refiners Look More Widely for Oil After EU’s Russia Curbs, Bloomberg, July 28^th, 2025 ↩︎
2. Jennifer Kavanagh, Russia likely laughing off Trump’s ‘open door’ to Tomahawks, Responsible Statecraft, September 30^th, 2025 ↩︎
3. Mohammed Soliman, America’s Scale Problem, Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), October 1^st, 2025
   Vivian Salama, The U.S. Is Quietly Pausing Some Arms Sales to Europe, The Atlantic, September 19^th, 2025
   Alexandr Burilkov, Juan Mejino-López & Guntram B. Wolff, The US defence industrial base can no longer reliably supply Europe, Bruegel, December 18^th, 2024
   Mike Fredenburg, By the numbers: US missile capacity depleting fast, Responsible Statecraft, November 11^th, 2024 ↩︎