U.S. aid resumes as Ukraine agrees to cease-fire

What happened

The Trump administration lifted its pause on intelligence sharing and military assistance for Ukraine after Ukraine agreed under pressure to a possible 30-day cease-fire with Russia. At negotiations in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. also said it would assist with humanitarian relief, while Ukraine agreed in principle to a deal to develop its mineral resources, with revenue going toward a reconstruction investment fund that the U.S. would partly own. Conceding territory to Russia — which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had once vowed never to do — is on the table, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. “That’s the only way this is going to end,” he said. “There’s no military solution.” He said it was now up to Russia, which was not at the talks, to accept the cease-fire.

Ukraine said the one-week pause in U.S. intel sharing had resulted in “hundreds of dead Ukrainians” because the country’s defenses were unable to stop a barrage of Russian missiles, but President Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin was just “doing what anybody else would do” in pressing the advantage. Ukraine fired back this week, launching its largest drone attack on Moscow of the three-year war, killing three people. Meanwhile, at an unprecedented emergency summit in Paris, more than 30 army chiefs from NATO and EU countries as well as Japan and Australia met without the U.S. to discuss how to respond to the Trump administration’s growing rapprochement with Moscow. They proposed posting European troops at key infrastructure sites in Ukraine, with France and the U.K. offering up their own forces for deployment. “The political message is we can do it together, and without the United States,” said one European diplomat, “but it’s clear there are things we can’t do.”

What the editorials said