Russia and Ukraine have been at war since February 2022.
In September 2022, Ukraine signed an application to be given accelerated membership of NATO.
Why was this important to Ukraine?
Under NATO, an attack on one member state is considered to be an attack on ALL member states. This means that if Ukraine were a member of NATO, this would lead to a direct war between USA, UK, and others on one side and Russia on the other side.
What happened to the application?
Finland was invited to join NATO in April 2023. Sweden joined on 7th March 2024. But Ukraine’s application has not yet been approved.
Both Finland and Sweden applied in May 2022, after the war broke out.
The main reason cited by Ukraine for going to war was its insistence on being a NATO nation. Yet, NATO itself has not approved its application till date.
How did Ukraine fund its war?
Ukraine did not fund its war. The United States did, followed by the European Union.
According to the Government of the United States, 174.2 billion USD has been given specifically under the Acts passed to support Ukraine, 18 billion were allocated from annual agency appropriations and 1.1 billion from other supplemental acts.
This makes the total amount 193.3 billion dollars.
Most of this aid was for weapon systems and defence. 94% of the 174.2 billion dollars was military aid.
The United States has not sent its soldiers to fight on behalf of Ukraine. It has only provided weapons.
Europe and its member states have also aided Ukraine. Of the 126 billion dollars listed on the EU website, the breakup between humanitarian and financial / military aid is:
What does 174.2 billion USD mean within the US?
In 2024, the education budget of the US was 268 billion dollars. The budget for agriculture was 218 billion dollars.
The other departments, especially Defence, had much higher allocations.
What happened between Trump and Zelinsky?
After taking office, Trump immediately moved to end the two major conflicts: Israel – Hamas and Russia – Ukraine.
Trump took office on January 20, 2025.
In February, the first envoy (representative) was sent to Moscow. The visit was kept very low key and came as a surprise to most countries. The UN was not involved. On 11th February, a day after the visit, an American prisoner was released by Russia. There was also a follow-up meeting on February 19th. These talks were held in Saudi Arabia.
After this, US also started talking to Ukraine for its views on ending the war.
On February 27th, Mr. Zelinsky, the Ukrainian president, reached Washington for a high-level meeting with President Trump. On this day, US and Russian officials were also meeting in Turkey, but according to both sides, Ukraine was not on the agenda of discussion.
For some reason, the meeting on February 28th was held in front of the Press. Usually, the talks are held behind closed doors and later, the leaders announce the decisions in a Press conference. In this case also, a Press Conference was scheduled for later, but it never took place.
During this meeting, President Trump indicated that President Zelinsky has a hatred of Putin that stops him from achieving peace. He also warned Zelinksy that he is toying with World War 3. Zelinsky also did not respond in a positive way and both leaders fell out over this conversation.
After this, President Zelinsky left the White House.
He then flew to Europe, where many European leaders made public statements of support to Kyiv (the capital of Ukraine is Kyiv). President Zelinsky, however, did make a tweet thanking the US for its support.
On Sunday, 2nd March, Zelinsky appeared in a press briefing and mentioned that the deal to end the Ukraine-Russia was “is still very, very far away.”
This led to an angry response by the US president on social media.
The angle of the rare earth minerals
A deal that President Zelinsky was expected to sign during his American visit was to allow the US to mine rare earth minerals that are found in Ukraine, in return for military and other aid.
Though this agreement was never signed, President Zelinsky has stated on March 2nd that he is open to further discussing this deal with the US, in spite of the recent setback in talks. The US has not responded to this.
What happens now?
This is a developing story. While there is every hope for an early ceasefire, we do not know enough to predict.
