Kuleba, who served as Ukraine’s foreign minister during the full-scale war with Russia, said the “key to ending the war in Ukraine is not in Washington. It's in Europe,” as US attention shifts toward the Middle East and pressure grows on Kyiv to hold the line with fewer guarantees. Europe, not Washington Kuleba said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s careful tone toward Washington reflects necessity rather than optimism. Ukraine, he argued, cannot afford an open rupture with the United States. “Trump sees Ukraine as an obstacle, not as an asset,” Kuleba said, adding that the US president’s broader worldview favors pressure on smaller states rather than support for their resistance. That matters now because the Iran war is already affecting Ukraine’s battlefield outlook. Kuleba said the most dangerous consequence is likely to be in air defense, with Patriot interceptors and other anti-ballistic systems in even shorter supply as US military resources are redirected to the Middle East. He warned that “the main battle in the coming months will be in the air, not on the ground.” The broader concern is that higher oil prices and looser pressure on Russian energy could also feed Moscow’s war machine. Earlier this week, Washington issued a 30-day waiver allowing the purchase of sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products already stranded at sea, a move that drew criticism from several US allies while being welcomed in Moscow. A harder short term Kuleba’s argument fits into a wider European debate over strategic dependence on the US. For Kuleba, the short-term picture remains grim. “On balance, the situation for Ukraine has worsened as a result of the war in Iran,” he said. Europe may eventually respond by accelerating rearmament and reducing reliance on the US, but that will take time — and, as he put it, wartime strategy depends on surviving “the time between short term and mid-term.” Orbán, Europe and political fracture Kuleba also argued that Moscow and the Trump camp both benefit from a weaker, more divided Europe, linking that concern to Hungary’s election campaign ahead of the April 12 vote. His conclusion was blunt: Ukraine has no viable alternative but to keep fighting, avoid a premature ceasefire and hope Europe moves faster.