Is Ukraine Winning Without U.S. Help?
By: Aidan G. Stretch
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
KYIV — On Friday, President Trump declared a three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine ahead of Russia’s “Victory Day” parade celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Moments later, a presidential decree appeared on Ukraine’s government website. “About the parade in Moscow,” the single-article statement read . “Allow a parade to be held on May 9, 2026, in the city of Moscow.”
The declaration was short but strong on symbolism. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky had spent last week threatening to disturb the celebrations with Ukrainian drones “buzzing” overhead. While he eventually agreed to Trump’s short ceasefire, the point of the Ukrainian statement was that it would be Kyiv, not Washington, dictating the terms.
While the front line of the Ukraine war remains a grinding stalemate, Kyiv’s confidence in setting its own war aims has increased as its long-range drones have brought the war deep inside Russia’s borders. Zelensky’s threats to the Victory Day parade were more than mere posturing.
In the past weeks, Ukraine has evaded Russia’s defenses, dealing unprecedented damage to Russia’s energy economy. At a shortened Victory Day parade, Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke of Russia’s soldiers advancing in Ukraine. Yet just hours later he told reporters that he thought the war could be approaching an end , a hint that Putin sees his country is weary of the conflict. It’s a sign that Ukraine has been pushing Russia closer to serious negotiations.
The Black Sea port city of Tuapse, one of Russia’s most vital energy hubs, presents a stark picture of how Ukraine’s assaults are forcing Russia to change its calculus. Ukrainian drones struck the city’s oil infrastructure four times in 16 days, coating the city in black smog and contaminating 30 miles of Black Sea coastline. The attacks have cost Russia $300 million and closed schools across the city as oily droplets falling from the sky make it unsafe for residents to leave their homes. The strikes in Tuapse are the clearest example that Ukraine may be finding leverage to force a peace on its own terms: Energy exports generate 30 percent of Russia’s federal revenues and determine how much Vladimir Putin can spend on his grinding frontline assault.
Smoke rises after a Ukrainian drone strike on an oil refinery in Tuapse, Russia, on April 28, 2026. (Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters)
When Ukraine first began its long-range strike campaign in 2024, it relied heavily on U.S. help. American satellite imagery provided the majority of the information Ukraine used to identify its targets, said Taras Chmut, the founder of Ukraine’s Come Back Alive Foundation, which helps arm the Ukrainian military. U.S. and British aviators, patrolling the skies nearby in F-35 aircraft, helped identify other installations that the satellites couldn’t detect. The U.S. also provided ATACMS ballistic missiles, manufactured by American defense giant Lockheed Martin, which Chmut says were critical to the campaign because Russian air defenses struggle to intercept them.
But last spring, the Trump administration began to wind down this assistance. In March 2025, the Pentagon announced a review of aid to Ukraine and paused intelligence sharing with the Ukrainian military. Now, the U.S. sends smaller quantities of weapons to Ukraine, purchased by European allies, and provides some access to satellite imagery but no longer lends the intelligence of its F-35s. Ukrainian officials say their stocks of ATACMS have nearly run out.
In their absence, Kyiv has developed its own long-range strike capabilities. This April and May, Ukraine carried out its most effective attacks on Tuapse of the war, targeting not only the refinery but also storage tanks and export facilities, according to Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
The weapons doing most of the damage are now Ukrainian-made. The FP-1, a long-range strike drone with a range up to 1,600 kilometers manufactured by Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, bears the brunt of the work. For targets better protected by Russian air defenses, Ukraine turns to its cruise missiles , which former CIA director General David Petraeus told me in an interview last month travel farther and carry heavier payloads than American cruise missiles. Fabian Hoffman, a Ukrainian defense expert, estimates that 95 percent of the drones and missiles used in long-range strikes are manufactured in Ukraine.
The intelligence needed to direct these weapons is more challenging for Ukraine to replace. Hoffman explains that American satellite and aviation intelligence is crucial—not for finding the energy targets themselves, but for taking out Russian air defenses that stand in the way. “You can find a refinery or a gas facility by looking up the coordinates on Google,” he said. “Where satellites can be really useful is understanding where the adversary deploys its air defense capabilities so that you can reroute around them.”
But Kyiv has managed to find workarounds. French president Emmanuel Macron said in January that two-thirds of the intelligence Ukraine receives now comes from France. “With the United States stepping back, we have obviously started to try to engage European countries more,” Chmut said. “They may be somewhat more technologically limited, but they are faster in making decisions than the Americans.”
The Ukrainian military has also increased attacks on Russian air defenses themselves, as intelligence gaps make it more challenging to evade them. Russia now appears to be running low on the missiles it uses to intercept Ukrainian strikes. Hoffman says that has created opportunities for slower, clunkier Ukrainian drones to reach their targets that might have otherwise been intercepted. “Russia now has to distribute their limited air defense systems over an ever-expanding territory,” Hoffman said, “and Ukraine is exploiting that.”
Russian servicemen march in the Victory Day parade in Moscow, on May 9, 2026. (Alexander Zemlianichenko via Reuters)
The attacks have not broken Russia’s war-financing machine. President Zelensky said on May 1 that Russia has lost at least $7 billion since the start of 2026. However, because the war in Iran has pushed up oil prices, Russian oil export revenue is still climbing on the whole. According to Russia’s finance ministry, oil and gas revenues rose 40 percent from March to April this year.
Still, the strikes could eventually erode Russia’s ability to fund and arm its military, even if their impact does not materialize immediately. “The idea of quickly collapsing the adversary through strategic air power—historically, this has never happened. But what has happened repeatedly is that strategic air power unfolded a later effect that degraded adversaries’ war-fighting capacity,” Hoffman said, noting that many labeled the Allied bombing of Germany a failure in 1943 before its wear on Germany’s industrial base became clear a year later.
Unlike in the Second World War, America’s role in ending the war in Ukraine is receding, not expanding. When the Trump administration first paused military assistance to Kyiv in March 2025, after his infamous Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, the U.S. was still providing roughly half of Western military aid to Ukraine. Today, that number has fallen close to zero as Europe pays for almost all new assistance.
Now that the U.S. no longer shoulders Kyiv’s security burden, the limits of Washington’s influence are becoming clearer. “We don’t need anyone’s permission,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after Zelenskyy posted his note about the Victory Day parade. Yet when it came time for the parade on Saturday—normally a demonstration of Russia’s military might—Russia’s tanks and missiles were nowhere in sight. Just in case, despite President Trump’s ceasefire, any Ukrainian drones still chose to buzz overhead.
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Russia's chances of winning this war in a conventional way are slipping away. Putin was depending on his puppet, Donald J Trump, to discourage Ukraine sufficiently to lead to a peace on Russias terms. The exact opposite is happening.
Morning... Russia's invasion was all meant to be all done and dusted in 7 days so Putrid thought..what a major absolute stuff up with his so called military advisors!!!.
Wonder if they are sitting in the gulags now and keeping away from open windows?...
Ukraine is not going anywhere, they are more than holding their own and many countries are supporting them..no fan fare no dramatics and have been doing so since day one..us included...
Speaking of which must be about time for another donation to Ukraine from myself..I do like to see the drones with my name on it, going into Russia with love..😁
Ukraine, like Iran is not going anywhere as Putrid and Trumpet are finding out..if either thinks otherwise then they're bigger dumb arses than anyone thought..
Better to look stupid, than actually confirm it...🇦🇺🇺🇦
trump has to support putin, so melania's slovenian home movies don't hit the internet, and he won't get a piece of the action.
pun intended ...
I put the question to "Big Brother:"
Short answer: Based on current reporting, Ukraine is not “winning the war” without U.S. help , and U.S. support remains a major factor in Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. Europe has increased its role, but U.S. military, financial, and intelligence assistance is still described as strategically important.
🇺🇦 What the evidence shows
Ukraine’s defense depends heavily on Western aid , especially U.S. military and financial support. The U.S. has made available $188 billion in Ukraine‑related spending as of December 2025.
European countries have stepped up , and combined European aid now exceeds U.S. contributions, but U.S. support is still considered essential for Ukraine’s military operations.
U.S. officials repeatedly state that Ukraine “needs our help to win today” and will continue to need support even after the war.
The Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker shows that Europe has increased its share of aid, but the U.S. remains one of the largest single contributors, especially in military assistance.
Microsoft Copilot: Your AI companion
is Russia winning Vic ? that seems to be a rapidly fading opinion, held mainly by Trump, Putin and various right wing talking heads.
don't trust AI
All articles from recent weeks in 2026.
A stalemate between David and Goliath is not a win for Goliath. It's a humiliation.
Just this past week, the Uke's air launched a boosted Flamingo missile accurately striking a Russian refinery 500 miles past Moscow.
Just this week they are introducing home designed glide bombs that are a fraction of the cost of American JDAMs
to be dropped by F-16s and Mirage jets. that own Ukrainian airspace...
Putin's Navy, what's left of it is trying to stay out of harms way, 600 to 1,000 miles away in an act of self preservation.
Germany and Poland are ramping up their militaries in force.
Why do these people hate Ukraine so much?
They do what they are told to do.
It's not so much that they hate Ukraine, it's that they currently have their heads stuffed up the guy's ass who is sucking off Putin. It's a "Sucker of the suckee is also a sucker' sort of thing.
When you're Trumps bitch, what wouldn't you do?
I[✘]
in other news, the maga cubans in florida are sounding the alarm about cuba threatening retaliation over the US's raul castro arrest warrant with armaments they just received from the russians (400 drones), after the dipshit traitor in the white house let putin bypass his cuban naval blockade to deliver humanitarian relief. trump should go shit in a bucket so that maga can run that for POTUS in '28. same thing as what we have now in the oval office ...
How far is Miami from Havana? About 90 miles or so?
... I think more like 70 miles.
Damn! Now I have to go google it
We're both wrong
edit:
oops, I was thinking key west ...
I was thinking Miami for a reason....
those russian drones trump let into cuba past his blockade could easily hit mar-a lardo ...
I have it on very credible authority that trump is scared shitless of exploding drones, which I find curious (hilarious) given his lack of empathy towards ukraine, the worlds recognized leader in the development of weaponized drone technology. I was enlightened by a friend in the know several months ago to observe how trump's motorcades have increased in the number of vehicles, and in their increased speeds while traveling now.
I'm thinking that democrats should take a play from the republican playbook, ala nixon and reagan, and back channel it to the ukrainians, iranians, venezuelans, taiwanese, norwegians, greenlanders, canadians, chinese, cubans, etc, etc, etc, to hold on and they'd all get better deals after the midterm election, and then leak the news of those agreements one at a time. it may not happen, but if it was publicized correctly it could be the straw the wrecks the golden sphincter's fragile mental state, not to mention his declining health. /s
"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted his country “can’t win” its war against Russia without US support.
In a candid moment Monday, Zelensky underscored the importance of American military weapons to defend his country’s airspace and fight the Russians on the battlefield .
“If we are speaking [about], can we win without American support, no,” Zelensky told Fox News’ Bret Baier on “Special Report.”
Zelensky admits Ukraine 'can't win' without US support
Why would any patriotic American cheer on Russia? For decades they were our sworn enemy.
that was before the trump tower in moscow deal was inked ...
Trump also tried to build a hotel in Ukraine as well
It is what he used to do.
That isn't collusion.
how many days overdue is trump's end to that war? he just can't seem to get exactly what putin wants out of the deal ...
maybe a fucking pile of smoldering rubble with his name on it would've helped him recognize the right side of this war.
I read the article and the comments. Can you tell us where you see that?
Ukraine was a sworn enemy for decades, too. The United States spent a lot of money defending Europe from Ukrainian threats.
The whole of the Eastern block were the sworn enemy until they could finally break away from "Mother Russia"...and those countries have done very well for themselves now and never looked back..
Putrid is still pining for the old days and wants to gather them all back into the Eastern block..he has failed miserably, he wanted to go down in history as the great Uniter..
He will go down as a tyrant and one of the most detested and hated men this planet has produced in the 21st century..
Ukraine was never a member of the Eastern Bloc. Ukraine was a founding member of the USSR in 1922.
Ukraine was never, ever, even once, a member of the Eastern Bloc. Ukraine was a sovereign peer with Russia in the USSR.
If Putin and Russia were pining for the old days then why is Lenin's tomb draped during state functions? Why is the Russian Orthodox Church now functioning much like a state institution?
They were when they were part of the Soviet Union. That entity does not exist anymore. Ukraine is an independent state. They don't belong to Russia. They are not our sworn enemy any longer
Thank-you, Shona. Somebody knows her history
Indeed. Yet there are millions in complete denial over this obvious fact. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, even after all that was revealed about Hitler's horrors there are still some fuck wad bigots out there who worship him.
And there are Holocaust deniers. Which I just don;t get
Cheering for Ukraine is no different than cheering for Russia. From the US standpoint there are no 'good guys' in the war. The United States should never have gotten involved.
The USSR was created by Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasian region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia). Under the USSR structure, republics were semi-autonomous constituent states. The USSR was not a country just as the EU is not a country. The USSR was a governmental body that member countries belonged to. It's the same type of governmental structure as the EU, NATO, the British Commonwealth.
The Soviet Red Army liberated the death camps in Poland. Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front (of the Soviet Red Army). Soviet Ukraine annexed parts of Poland after World War II when the USSR absorbed Poland (as part of the Easter Bloc). Most of today's western Ukraine was annexed in the aftermath of World War II.
Morning Fishy...was in Russia in 1987.. still very much Communism to the extreme as was Ukraine, Poland and East Germany and East Berlin..
How in the hell people survived I don't know..was the most depressing, down trodden and destitute places I had ever been to..
We were followed by the KGB, starred at, as Westerners were still very rare let alone a bus full of Aussies and Kiwis and goverment officials were corrupt to the eyeballs..
Could always tell the "government employees" by their cars, clothes and houses..
Best thing that ever happened when the Berlin Wall came down and the other countries threw off the yoke of Communist tyranny and walked into the light..
Cheering for Ukraine is no different to cheering for Russia..first good laugh of the morning...🤣
From the US stand point!!!..with Trump running amok the US is fast becoming the basket case of the world..
Surely you can't be that misguided...happy to send a drone over to the Russians with your name on it..I have sent plenty..
So yep, I am really cheering for those Russians and I am sure they are just loving it..
🇦🇺🇺🇦
Well, that is the whole point of the war from the western perspective. Blood money. Profiteering from pain. Dollars for destruction.
And all because a tin pot regime leader in pining for the old days and the fallen Soviet Empire..
From my Western point of view it is my money very well spent..💥
Modern Ukraine and Russia are not communist. The 'old days' are not coming back. Cold War ideological differences and disputes are obsolete and irrelevant today.
Both Ukraine and Russia are modern economies motivated by transactional trade. Like it or not, today's war in Ukraine is a result of progressive escalation of a trade dispute that began in the late 2000s.
I joined the USAF in 87 and we were still in the Cold War Stage. Can't remember that guy's name who was in charge. He had a big purple birthmark in his head. But I do remember the fall of the Soviet Union. The biggest fear then was nukes in the hands of rogue states such as Ukraine.
Russia is very much a repressive regime. Putin rids himself of competition by defenstration
Gorbachev (sp)
Thank-you! I knew it started with a G but I just couldn't get the rest of it.
hell i couldnt remember the spelling hence the (sp) tag .
I attribute that to typing before any coffee.
if folks want bright eyed and bushy tailed they can go catch a squirrel or a trash panda .
LOL
Morning...and open windows..😁
Morning Mark...
Trash Panda's??? Assume that's a raccoon?
We have a bingo.
They're destructive little buggers. We have to have reinforced bird feeders because of them
Evening...I really like racoons....love the way they chatter and their bandit faces..
I have wondered what it would be like if we could genetically cross racoons with those fainting goats ....or any animal for that matter with fainting goats .
That will take a fete of strength and intelligence that is only written about in science fiction and fantasy novels. Very different species and most likely not compatible.
BUT...I would prefer raccoons that stick to eating my grass instead of destroying my bird feeders