Here is how Ukraine can still beat Russia

When you read this, I will just have arrived at the Pearl of the Black Sea, as this historic, much beloved, multiethnic city was known in the peaceful days before Vladimir Putin tried to break it with missiles and drones.

Since no Ukrainian airports are open, the route took me by air from New York via Bucharest, Romania, to Chișinău, the capital of Moldova, and then four hours by car across the Ukrainian border to Odesa.

Over the past week, Russia has unleashed a barrage of killer drones and ballistic missiles on Odesa’s civilian port, which delivers grain to the world. The attack was part of an unprecedented torrent of drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles that Moscow has rained down on Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv.

Putin knows that aside from toothless protestations of “Vladimir, STOP!” President Donald Trump won’t interfere. It is painful and embarrassing to be an American in Ukraine now. Friends, colleagues, and contacts here, with whom I have talked in the lead-up to my visit, are simply astonished that a US leader would let Putin humiliate him the way Trump has.

“Russia is so emboldened by Trump. He has given Putin complete carte blanche,” is the common belief. Trump repeatedly promises to sanction Putin if he refuses a ceasefire or serious peace talks, and then backs down when Moscow pours on the missiles. Even as I arrived in Ukraine, Trump, yet again, insisted he had to give Putin more time to see if he was “serious” about ending the war. Trump is clearly unwilling to stand up to the Kremlin boss, and his glaring weakness is evident to the entire world. But beyond the president’s mad obsession about forming an alliance with Putin, Trump has spread dangerous myths to the US public about Ukraine that obscure the importance of that country to our security and global standing. The main reason I am traveling to Ukraine this time is to debunk those myths by describing facts on the ground.

Let’s start with Trump’s constant refrain that Putin wants peace. A tour of playgrounds, college dorms, and apartment buildings deliberately targeted by Russian missiles should have put that foolishness to rest, if the president wanted to see. As the noted Russia expert, Angela Stent, who authored Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest, told me: “Putin has no interest in ending the war now. He has made the war his mission. The Russian economy is on a war footing. Putin has militarised the whole society.

“Three-year-olds in Russian preschools are dressed in military uniforms and singing military songs. At this point, Putin has a messianic view of rebuilding the Russian empire.”

I also want to talk with escapees from Russian-occupied territory about the brutality they’ve experienced to show the kind of “peace” Putin has in mind. Trump insists Ukraine is losing the war, and Russians always win. If the president took U.S. intelligence briefings and relied less on former KGB colonel Putin’s phone propaganda, he’d know Russians often lose — think 1905 to Japan, the ‘80s in Afghanistan, and now in Syria, for a few examples. Even more important, despite Trump’s betrayal, Ukraine has not lost this war.

Indeed, given Russia’s weak economic situation and desperate reliance on North Korea, Iran, and China for assistance, this is the moment when increased sanctions on Moscow’s energy sector could have real impact. This is the perfect time when continued U.S. help with intel and air defense could help Ukraine’s capable defense efforts push the Russians back. What most Americans may not know is that Ukrainians have done a remarkable job of holding a nuclear power with three times their population to a virtual territorial stalemate. They have done it by developing a new form of technological warfare that relies on land, sea, and air drones to compensate for artillery shortages and Russia’s massive advantage in troop numbers. They have been able to do this not only because Ukraine has a wealth of talent, but because most Ukrainians believe they have no option but to continue fighting or else be subjected to Russian overlordship that will destroy their lives.

Thus, Ukraine now has the strongest, most technologically advanced army in Europe, and is ahead of the US in manufacturing unmanned drones of all sizes and capabilities, cheaply and quickly. In fact, the US military, whose innovators were already studying Ukraine’s technological successes, could learn critical lessons if Trump’s Pentagon was not bent on kneecapping Kyiv.

That is why I’m planning to visit private drone factories, large and small, in rear cities and near the front lines, and look at what Ukraine does right and what Kyiv needs — and lacks — to scale up military production against Russia, which relies on Iranian drone technology and copying Ukraine’s successes. Trump and his team also claim Ukraine’s fate is a problem for Europe, not the U.S., because we need to focus on China. And he appears to believe he can wean Putin from his alliance with China and act as the powerful balancer between Moscow and Beijing. “It is a total illusion that Trump can separate Russia from China,” Stent said. “They need each other to end the US dominance of the global system and to make the world safe for authoritarian systems.” Putin relishes Trump’s break with Europe, she told me, because this undermines NATO and breaks the alliance of democratic countries. Trump and Vice President JD Vance have aided that process by praising pro-Russia far-right parties and, as in Germany, openly supporting the neo-Nazi opposition.

As one European parliamentarian told me, the only way to counter China is for the United States “to glue your economy to the European Union” and join with Europe in countering unfair Chinese economic practices and overt Chinese military threats. Instead, Trump is doing the opposite, pursuing a trade and tariff war with Europe while refusing to sanction Russia and lowering tariffs on China. Trump seems bent on leaving the Europeans alone to face an aggressive Russian leader who openly detests the West. “America, am I your enemy or your friend?” this European official asked plaintively. “Americans have to show on which side they are on.” Ukraine is the test case. The country is defending the fault line between democratic countries of the West and Asia, and an aggressive Russia tightly aligned with an axis of dictators who all wish the United States ill. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine — aided by Trump’s blindness — this will embolden Beijing to move against Taiwan and other US allies like Japan in the Indo-Pacific region.

Shocked by US abandonment, Europe has now awakened to the need to rearm to face Russia. Europe (or most of it) will do its best to help Ukraine survive — including scaling up its defense industries. But Europe can’t fully fill the intelligence gap or the Ukrainian lack of air defenses if Trump abandons Kyiv and fully aligns with Moscow. No doubt, Putin is delighted at how easily he can manipulate a weak Trump to see dollar signs in such an unholy alliance. The outcome of the global contest between democracy and autocracy is being determined right now in Ukraine, as Putin sneers at Trump and mobilises a new offensive. That is exactly why I came to Odesa, and will continue on to Kyiv and frontline areas in eastern Ukraine to talk to military and political officials, civilians, and soldiers about how long they can hold out if Trump crosses over to the enemy side.

I believe Trump is wrong on every count. Ukraine is not losing, although US abandonment will make its survival much more difficult. History will regard Ukraine’s fate as a turning point in deciding whether democracies, including our own, find their power eclipsed by a rising alliance of autocracies led by China. And right now, given Trump’s tendencies, we do not know which side of this battle the U.S. government will choose.