Dubbed “Rearm Europe,” the remarks from the European Commission’s president came hours after President Donald Trumpsuspended all U.S. military aid to Ukraine, widening the gulf between Washington and Kyiv and going against the fresh commitments of support from Europe for Ukraine in recent days.
“I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face, or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those threats would come to pass,” von der Leyen told reporters.
I hope this is a pausing strategy.
A few more days to see what shakes out of the EU and other allies.
EU and US are about equal for contributions:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crew8y7pwd5o
Considering that the eu is looking at €800bn spending to help arm Ukraine (https://apnews.com/article/europe-defense-ukraine-united-states-trump-c1f12e685afc3e2ca94c9a15ea28d8bb) I don’t blame Ukraine for stalling to see what happens.
Monitarily, the EU is the biggest ally. The US is the biggest single ally, but not the biggest ally.
I expect big things from the EU in the next few days, and - in a dream scenario - Zelensky goes back to the white house to “capitulate” and tells them to fuck themselves on live television.
Because you KNOW trump wants Zelensky bending-the-knee to be televised
One difference is that the US contributions have largely been equipment that was close to being decommissioned, which costs money on its own.
This does not make that contributions less important, but should cost the taxpayer much less and was already allocated by the military budget.