Members of the National Police Special Purpose Battalion of Zaporizhzhia region fire a howitzer toward Russian troops on a front line on Friday. (Reuters)
KYIV — Ukraine is preparing for high-stakes talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday that it hopes will restore relations after a bruising week in which President Donald Trump paused the provision of military aid and intelligence sharing vital for Kyiv to repel Russian attacks.
The weekend saw fierce fighting and Russian advances in the Kursk region, where Ukrainians hold a sliver of Russian territory, but the military said by Monday the situation was stabilizing.
Ukrainian officials will seek to convince the U.S. delegation that they are ready for a swift end to the war, and are set to present a case for a partial ceasefire after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week he would push for a ban on long-range drone and missile attacks as well as on military operations in the Black Sea.
Trump appeared to indicate a softening of the pressure on Zelensky’s embattled country when he told reporters late Sunday that the United States had “just about” ended a suspension of intelligence-sharing with Kyiv and said he expected good results from the talks.
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But a senior State Department official told reporters traveling on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s plane to the Saudi talks that there were no assurances on resuming military or intelligence support to Kyiv.
The Ukrainian delegation will be led by Zelensky’s top aide, Andriy Yermak. Zelensky will not attend the meeting but will be in Saudi Arabia on a separate trip.
In a video address late Sunday, Zelensky said, “We hope for results — both in bringing peace closer and in continuing support.”
Zelensky is under pressure to support Trump’s diplomatic drive to bring a quick end to the war despite the lack of any promises for U.S. security guarantees to prevent new Russian incursions into Ukraine.
Officials in Kyiv are still smarting from last week’s sudden pulling of military support, which left many in Ukraine feeling betrayed and leaders across Europe questioning the future of the transatlantic alliance.
The situation “is fragile and it’s based on things that often we don’t understand at all. I don’t want to make any forecasts anymore because it is completely unpredictable,” said one Ukrainian official.
“Tomorrow’s meeting will be very important for Ukraine,” said another senior Ukrainian official, adding that he expected the situation to still change many times. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.
The senior official warned that last week’s decision to pause military aid could open the way for Russian propaganda to convince Ukrainians that they had fought — and died — for empty promises from the West, allowing Russia to potentially make political inroads to destabilize the government.
“People will ask for what did we pay a huge price, what was the reason for this: So that one day the Americans said thank you, it was a proxy war?” he said. Russian propaganda will attempt to say “you died not for your interests but for the interests of Uncle Sam. And after this Uncle Sam betrayed you. Believe me, we will have enough politicians who will repeat it.”
The pausing of large portions of intelligence-sharing appeared to have had an immediate effect on the battlefield. Russian forces advanced on Friday in Russia’s Kursk region, seeking to encircle Ukrainian troops and cut off supply lines.
By Monday, however, the situation appeared to be stabilizing after Ukraine sent reinforcements and was mostly able to repel a daring attempt by Russian forces on Saturday to break into Ukraine’s strategic stronghold in the town of Sudzha by crawling through a gas pipeline.
A spokesman for the army said Ukrainian forces had been able to “destroy” most of the Russian attack force by blowing up a segment of the pipeline, but added that the situation on the front line was still “dynamic.”
“The situation is difficult because they control the logistics routes,” said a Ukrainian fighter from the 82nd Brigade, who goes by the call sign Krim. Under military rules, soldiers typically speak on the condition that they’re identified only by call sign or first name. “They attempt meat grinder assaults.”
The soldier said the events of recent weeks had left him feeling “like we’re in some kind of surreal TV show rather than reality” adding that it was “obvious that Trump is on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s side and will pressure us.”
Current and former Ukrainian officials said the withdrawal of U.S. support last week could affect future trust in the United States across Europe, as well as morale among the Ukrainian armed forces. “If things go the way they’re going, it is very serious damage to American soft power,” said Oleh Rybachuk, former chief of staff to ex-president Viktor Yushchenko, one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution in which Ukraine first sought to break free from Moscow’s orbit 20 years ago.
The U.S. pause in military assistance also impacted the provision of satellite imagery services, affecting commercial providers such as Maxar that had signed contracts with Ukraine.
Rybachuk said the decision would undermine trust in U.S. weaponry and technology. “Can you imagine the shock of the Europeans who realized that if this is how Ukraine is being treated, that this could happen to them. They have all purchased trillions of dollars worth of U.S. equipment and now they are not sure if that equipment will work.”
Russia has intensified its efforts to retake Ukraine’s sliver of Kursk in recent weeks, sending in elite units of paratroopers and marines, as well as several thousand reinforcements of now battle-hardened North Korean soldiers who began fighting in Kursk last autumn.
According to estimates by military experts, Russia has retaken about half of the territory it lost last summer. Britain’s Defense Ministry said Monday that Ukrainian forces probably maintain control of about 115 square miles (300 square kilometers) of Kursk.
Dmytro Likhovy, a spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces, said Russian and North Korean forces now far outnumber Ukrainian troops in Kursk. But the change in focus meant Russia was now losing ground in Pokrovsk in the east, he said. “They are sending new forces, and possibly because of this they have reduced pressure in Pokrovsk in Donetsk,” he said. “There, we have been able to stabilize the situation and in some places restore control over territories we lost before.”
Andriy, a drone unit commander operating in Kursk, told The Washington Post that the Ukrainian troop withdrawal from some parts of Kursk was to preserve personnel. He said the troops there had yet to feel the impact of the suspension of American military support.
“The Russians are pressing from all directions now — it’s tough, but we are holding on gradually,” he said.
John Hudson in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine