Zelensky says Ukraine will lose war if US cuts funding

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News late on Tuesday that Ukraine would lose the war if Washington, its main military backer, pulled funding.

The Ukrainian leader said it would be “very dangerous if we lose unity in Europe, and what is most important is unity between Ukraine and the United States”.

US President-elect Donald Trump has campaigned on a promise to end US involvement in wars and instead use taxpayers’ money to improve Americans’ lives.

He has said he will bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end within 24 hours, without saying how.

“If they will cut, I think we will lose,” Zelensky told Fox News.

“Of course anyway we will stay, we will fight, we have our production but it is not enough to prevail and it think it is not enough to survive.”

Asked if Trump would be able to influence Putin to end the war, Zelensky replied: “It will not be simple but yes he can because he is stronger than Putin.

“Putin is weaker than the United States. The President of the United States has the strength, authority and weapons, and he can decrease the price of energy resources.”

Many Republicans want US taxpayer funding for Ukraine to stop.

Senator JD Vance, who will be Trump’s vice-president, has regularly objected to providing arms to Ukraine, saying the US lacks the manufacturing capacity.

Earlier this year, he told the Munich Security Conference that Europe should wake up to the US having to “pivot” its focus to East Asia.

It is a feeling also held by many voters, with 62% of Republicans telling a Pew Research poll that the US had no responsibility to support Ukraine in the war against Russia.

On Tuesday, Ukraine fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory for the first time, a day after the US gave permission for their use.

US President Joe Biden has also agreed to give Ukraine anti-personnel land mines, a US defence official told the BBC.

But Zelensky said Ukraine was going through a “very difficult period” on the battlefield.

The Russian military is accelerating its gains along the front line, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Its analysis found Russian forces seized six times more territory in 2024 than it did in the previous year.

Based on confirmed social media footage and reports of troop movements, the ISW said Moscow’s forces seized around 2,700 sq km of Ukrainian territory so far this year, compared with just 465 sq km in the whole of 2023.

Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is faltering as Russian troops have pushed Kyiv’s offensive backwards.

Zelensky also had harsh words for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for speaking to Putin on the phone last week.

He told Fox News it was a “Pandora’s box” because Putin’s isolation would increase the pressure on him.