Trump’s Iran gamble risks leaving Ukraine as forgotten war

Europeans fear a distracted U.S. will lose interest in pushing Putin toward peace — as America depletes stocks of the missiles that Ukraine desperately needs.

By Tim Ross, Veronika Melkozerova,
Esther Webber and Zoya Sheftalovich

Photo-Illustration by Ellen Boonen

LONDON — Europeans struggling to cope with Donald Trump’s inflammatory interventions may be about to discover there’s one thing worse: Ceasing to be the object of his attention.

As Trump’s ongoing operation against Iran takes priority with Pentagon planners and the White House, European officials fear he will lose interest in ending “Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, now into its fifth year.

The practical impact if the U.S. becomes embroiled in a drawn-out conflict in the Middle East could be even more severe than the political effect: Ukraine may be starved of the American-made weapons it needs to resist daily Russian missile attacks — because U.S. forces are using so many of them against Iran.

“Everyone understands that for us, this is our life — the appropriate weapons,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on Monday. “If there are long-term hostilities in the Middle East, this will certainly affect the supply. I am sure of this.”

Trump said on Monday that the U.S and Israel-led war on Iran could last four to five weeks, but that he is prepared for it to go longer. Some analysts have warned it has the potential to spiral into a broader conflict that may be hard for America to exit.

“There is a knock-on effect in terms of attention,” said Ed Arnold from the Royal United Services Institute defense think tank in London. “How do you pin Trump down for having a policy or looking into renewed efforts to curtail the Russians in Ukraine, when he’s just opened another front in a potential war? Equally, if you’re going to fire off a lot of kit and equipment into the region, you’re not going to have the spares on the shelf.”

Even before the U.S. began its air strikes on Iran, officials in Washington were raising concerns that such a conflict could deplete American weapons stocks and leave the U.S. more vulnerable, an argument that is likely to grow louder the longer the war goes on. That could push the Trump administration to prioritize replenishing its own stocks at the expense of making missiles available to sell to Europe and Ukraine, a senior European government official warned, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter is sensitive.

“A lot of firepower including interceptor and other missiles have been expended,” the official said. “The U.S. needs to restock, meaning there is less for Europe or Ukraine to buy.”

No ready supplies

In Kyiv, U.S.-made PAC-3 missile interceptors for Patriot air defense systems are seen as vital to shooting down Russian rockets. European governments don’t have ready supplies of air defenses either, and are prioritizing developing their own capabilities in order to be more self-reliant as well as to contribute more to Ukraine. But that effort is likely to take years.

AC-3 missile interceptors for Patriot air defense systems are seen as vital to shooting down Russian rockets. | Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images

Zelenskyy said it was “too early” to know whether the Middle East conflict will hurt Ukraine’s weapons supply line. “But we will do everything so that our domestic financing is not stopped, and then our domestic production will work at full capacity,” he said.

Kateryna Chernohorenko, former deputy defense minister of Ukraine, said in a post on Facebook Monday that drone developers, electronic warfare specialists and others must work together to avoid stocks running short. She called on Ukrainian arms firms to act quickly to buy up stockpiles of critical components to see the country through the next 12 to 24 months.

“The situation in the Middle East could very quickly escalate into a crisis of components for the defense industry in Ukraine,” she said. “Prices, quotas and supply chains will change dramatically.”

Talks continue

On the face of it, Trump remains committed to finding a solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. His envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner met Ukrainian representatives last week for talks in Geneva. Trump has also spoken to Zelenskyy ahead of planned three-way talks including Russia, which had been expected later this week.

Zelenskyy said the next talks were due to begin March 5-6 in Abu Dhabi, but that the “hostilities” in the Middle East mean this plan can’t be confirmed. “Nevertheless, no one has canceled the meeting,” he said, suggesting it could be relocated to Turkey or Switzerland if needed. “The meeting must take place, it is important for us.”

Yet Trump’s attempts to force the pace of negotiations, including by hitting Russia’s oil industry with U.S. sanctions, have so far failed to produce a breakthrough. Trump himself has said in the past that he might one day run out of patience and “back away” from trying to help deliver peace. “This was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation,” Trump said as long ago as last May.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin seems to be in no hurry to strike a deal. Recent days have seen more huge attacks on Ukraine with hundreds of Russian missiles and drones.

Playing the long game, with support from allies including China, North Korea and Iran, has helped Putin in some ways. After nearly three years of war, Ukraine-supporting Joe Biden left the White House to be replaced by Trump, who then cut off U.S. funding for Ukraine and temporarily shut down intelligence sharing as well.

“It’s going to be challenging to keep the bandwidth,” one European diplomat said. “Before the war against Iran — the Americans were already showing less interest and losing patience with Ukraine.”

The diplomat said Trump could lose focus on the peace negotiations — but added, “Were they leading anywhere anyhow?”

European can-kicking

Russia has been relentlessly attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure all winter, including with a massive missile and drone attack on the night of Feb. 25-26. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces launched 420 drones and 39 missiles against Ukraine — the fourth time Russia had fired more than 400 projectiles into Ukraine in February. Ukrainian air defenses shot down 374 drones and 32 of the missiles, according to the ISW.

The first tangible impact of the Iran crisis on Ukraine has already been felt — on the country’s bid to join the European Union. The EU had been due to give Ukrainian officials details of the next steps they would need to complete on their path to membership in the bloc, at a meeting in Cyprus this week.

American and Israeli strikes have killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a host of commanders and other top regime personnel. | leader.ir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

But after an Iranian drone struck a British air base in Cyprus, the meeting was postponed. The delay is another disappointment for Kyiv, after the EU late last year failed to reach a deal on using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s recovery, then also failed to finalize a much-needed €90 billion loan that was promised instead. Without urgent new funding, Ukraine will face a budget deficit next month.

The EU plans to reschedule the meeting and to hand Ukraine its remaining accession files to negotiate as soon as possible, said a European diplomat familiar with the plans.

“It’s important not to lose the momentum,” the diplomat said. “We don’t want to allow the situation in the Middle East to affect this.”

Not all Putin’s way

To be sure, Putin is far from getting everything he wants. American and Israeli strikes have killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a host of commanders and other top regime personnel, denying Putin another valuable ally after U.S. forces captured Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in January.

Iran had also been buying Russian weapons, and at the start of the Ukraine war sold its “Shahed” drones to Moscow. More recently, Russia has been making many of its own, based on Iranian designs.

Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the foreign relations committee in the Ukrainian parliament, told POLITICO on Monday he was “not worried Trump will be too distracted by war in Iran.”

“In principle, there are certain pluses for us,” he said. Apart from denying Russia a supplier of weapons, the U.S. attacks on Iran could help show Trump that Ukraine is “on the same side” as the U.S. — two democratic countries battling authoritarian regimes. “We are fighting against the entire axis of evil,” he said. “It’s not just Russia, it’s Iran, North Korea, it’s China, which is economically helping the Russian war machine.”

Yehor Chernev, deputy head of the national security and defense committee in the Ukrainian parliament, told POLITICO the Iran war will continue “in parallel” with the U.S.-brokered peace talks, which have not been canceled.

“They are interconnected,” he said. “The faster and more effectively the U.S. acts against Iran, the more chances there are to achieve progress in peace negotiations with Russia. The only risk for us will be if the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran drags on and does not achieve any goals. Then, indeed, attention to Ukraine may weaken.”

Audrey Decker contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.