President Donald Trump's comments on Wednesday, February 19, calling Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator" have prompted Ukrainians to fear that United States military aid will soon be at risk under the new administration.

At this stage, the sending of additional defense equipment isn't officially questioned. But, without American military aid, "we will last six months," said Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, former first deputy of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, to Al-Jazeera on February 17, during the Munich Conference. "Europe can't possibly replace American aid," he added. Nikolai Mitrokhin, a researcher at the University of Bremen (Germany), also quoted by the Qatari channel, added that current US supplies if used sparingly, could not last beyond "mid-summer" or "autumn."

In addition to the staggering sums involved – almost $70 billion spent since the start of the war in 2022, excluding direct budget subsidies – US military aid to Kyiv is vital for several crucial segments of Ukrainian defense operations. These include anti-aircraft and missile defense, essentially made of Patriot systems positioned around sensitive infrastructures and the capital, Kyiv. However, these systems need a lot of expensive interceptor missiles, which also come from the US.

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