Sudden Shift – The Zelensky Era Is Fading, NATO Quietly Leaves Ukraine Behind
This week’s NATO summit in The Hague, the first since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, raised the most uncomfortable question for Kyiv since the start of the war: has the West — perhaps irrevocably — decided to leave Ukraine to its “fate”? Namely, instead of being the central item on the agenda, the war was pushed into the “miscellaneous” category, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was no longer the “star” of the summit but merely an honorary guest at a working lunch. This is certainly something Zelensky is not used to, having until recently expected to take center stage wherever he appeared.
On a symbolic level, the tone was set by the protocol and the final declaration. The 20-page document makes no promise of Ukrainian membership, doesn’t mention any deadlines, and not even the need to discuss the issue next year. On the other hand, the allies triumphantly accepted Trump’s demand to raise national defense budgets to 5% of GDP over the next decade. The message is clear: take care of your own armies (and American military contracts), and leave the issue of Ukraine’s borders for later.
Meanwhile, the Russian military has continued its summer offensive in the east. Ballistic strikes on Dnipro and Kyiv, causing civilian deaths and injuries, failed to provoke a unified condemnation from the Alliance. Some European leaders reacted individually, but the collective silence should deeply worry Zelensky.
Military aid from Washington, which was crucial in the early years of the war, has practically dried up. The last major package was approved back in January, under the previous administration. The new U.S. priority has become the Middle East crisis, and even the rare announcements of additional Patriot batteries are now conditional. As the 2024 stockpiles run out, Ukrainian commanders are warning that by the end of summer they will be without critical air-defense munitions.
The rift between the United States and Europe now yawns like trenches on the battlefield. Trump openly questions Article 5 and the automatic defense of the Baltic states, sending a message to Eastern allies to “free themselves from the American umbrella.” Berlin, Paris, and London are trying to fill the vacuum: Germany has approved the transfer of long-range missile systems, the Netherlands delivered its last F-16s, and Norway is considering doubling its shipments. Still, the European industrial base is depleted from earlier aid packages and cannot quickly replace what Ukraine needs just to keep fighting (losses are guaranteed in all scenarios).
As a result, Ukraine is increasingly relying on its own production — from artillery shells to cheap assault drones. The UK-Ukraine joint drone production plan is still in its early stages, and Germany’s investments in cruise missile manufacturing won’t bear fruit until 2026. By the time production ramps up, the front line will still demand hundreds of thousands of shells per month. In this gap, Moscow sees an opportunity and is pushing harder on Donetsk and Sumy, betting that Ukraine’s mobilization plans are faltering with younger age groups and lack of training.
The internal NATO political dynamics further complicate matters. Washington no longer sees Ukraine through the lens of European security, but rather through the lens of domestic spending and the risk of a broader war with Russia. Trump is therefore more focused on demonstrating the allies’ fiscal discipline than on maintaining Kyiv’s long-term air superiority. Europeans, while vocally supportive, lack a unified mechanism for rapid escalation of aid; individual decisions are regularly stalled by complex procedures and fears that the Kremlin might target their infrastructure.
As for the nearly unanimous commitment to soon spend 5% of GDP on defense, this is a triumph for the U.S., one that spreads to and stifles other European ambitions. One day, Europe will simply abandon Ukraine and declare that it cannot afford a quarrel with the U.S., i.e., that close cooperation with Washington is more important than the outcome of the Ukrainian war.
Of course, this was evident from the beginning, but Zelensky never wanted to accept it as the almost certain conclusion.
Ukraine’s war effort is further undermined by manpower issues. After Trump’s public criticism of “forced conscription on the streets,” Zelensky relented and lowered the mobilization age limit. In doing so, he acknowledged a massive soldier deficit but failed to solve the motivation problem: the front has exhausted veterans, and short training courses turn recruits into easy targets for more sophisticated Russian units. The gap between the top and the front lines grows with every lost village.
This sense of exhaustion is spreading to society. What was once an almost religious faith in Western institutions is being replaced by cynicism. As Kyiv counts the wreckage of a destroyed school, the question is increasingly asked: if NATO cannot condemn such an attack today, will it really send soldiers tomorrow to defend the borders? It is precisely this loss of moral capital — not just missiles — that may be the gravest blow, and what could ultimately prevent Ukraine from continuing to exhaust itself indefinitely.
So why has the Alliance allowed the Ukraine issue to slip from the top of its list? The first reason lies in a realistic understanding of limited resources. After three years of intensive arming of Kyiv, Western arsenals are depleted, and production is only slowly ramping up to wartime levels. The second reason is political: the U.S. administration wants to show it isn’t tied to “endless wars,” and Europe wants to avoid deeper involvement in a conflict that could cross the nuclear threshold.
The third, perhaps decisive motive, is the calculation that a war without clear victors will end in negotiations. In that logic, overly rigid rhetoric or generous military aid could close the door to diplomacy and force the Kremlin to escalate. Paradoxically, the lack of clear guarantees to Ukraine serves as a signal to Moscow that the West is seeking an exit — but at the same time increases the chance that Putin will conclude he can achieve more on the battlefield than at the negotiating table.
The consequences of this strategy are already visible. The Russian side is testing the Dnipro river lines. If Kyiv falls or agrees to a peace package resembling capitulation, a domino effect of mistrust and paranoia will follow. The Baltic states are so fearful of a Russian “return” (perhaps because of their harsh treatment of Russian populations in the post-Soviet era — especially in Estonia) that they will see Ukraine’s defeat as “proof” that NATO “doesn’t work.” In doing so, they forget a key fact: Ukraine is not a NATO member, while they (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) are!
So has NATO abandoned Ukraine? In a military-technical sense, not yet: billions of euros in aid and new Patriot batteries will reach the front, and Brussels is not lifting sanctions on Russia. But in the political-psychological sense, the answer is edging closer to “yes.” Ukraine has gone from being the epicenter of European security to an uncomfortable reminder of the imperfections of the multilateral system. While allies calculate defense spending in spreadsheets, Kyiv remains alone on the front line, increasingly aware that beyond rhetoric, it must rely first and foremost on its own resilience — but everything has its limits, and its end.
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