ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 1, 2025

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Senior US officials are suggesting that the United States may cut all aid to Ukraine, although US President Donald Trump has not indicated any such intention. Cutting the current flow of aid to Ukraine would directly undermine President Trump’s stated goal of achieving a sustainable peace in Ukraine.
• Ukrainian forces enabled by essential US assistance are inflicting unsustainable losses on Russian forces while holding them to marginal gains. This situation, combined with the severe challenges Russia will face in 2025, offers the US great leverage in peace negotiations. A suspension of ongoing US military assistance to Ukraine would encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to continue to increase his demands and fuel his conviction that he can achieve total victory through war.
• Curtailing aid to Ukraine would risk diminishing US influence in the world and emboldening US adversaries.
• Putin, not Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, remains the main obstacle to a lasting peace agreement on Ukraine.
• The Kremlin launched another informational effort intended to discourage additional US and European military assistance to Ukraine by claiming that Russia has won the war in Ukraine.
• European countries remain committed to supporting the Ukrainian military and defense industry, however, amid preparations for a European defense summit about Ukraine on March 2.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Toretsk and Russian forces recently advanced near Velyka Novosilka.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to recruit medically unfit soldiers in an effort to address personnel shortages.

Authors: Davit Gasparyan, Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, Olivia Gibson, and Frederick W. Kagan with William Runkel.

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