Ukraine Is Becoming the NATO Ally Trump Wants

0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Donald Trump has a very clear list of expectations from European NATO allies. Contribute your fair share to the alliance, take responsibility for your own defense , and—since February’s foray into another unpopular conflict in the Middle East—help me with the war on Iran .

European leaders have acknowledged their years of skimping on defense spending and have pledged to increase it, but beyond that, Trump’s demands have been met with a great deal of grumbling.

Meanwhile, Ukraine —long viewed by the Trump administration as little more than an aid recipient and a drain on American finances—is happy to meet the challenge.

This weekend’s strike on an Iranian vessel , along with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ’s offer to share intelligence on Russia allegedly sharing surveillance of U.S. military bases in the Gulf with Iran, marks the latest move by Kyiv to make its point clear. The old scales used to estimate Ukraine’s worth to Washington are no longer accurate.

"Ukraine is successfully demonstrating its value. The question now is the extent to which Washington responds to that signal," Jacob Parakilas, Research Leader at RAND Europe for Defense Strategy, told Newsweek .

For the past four-and-a-half years, Ukraine's Armed Forces and intelligence services have been rather busy, what with defending against a full-scale invasion and all. Yet Kyiv has still found time to help the U.S. and its partners amid the ongoing war in Iran.

On Saturday, Ukraine launched a long-range strike that targeted vessels it claimed were involved in military cargo shipments linked to Iran in the Caspian Sea, destroying one ship and killing a sailor.

Then Zelensky went a step further, announcing in a weekend address: "I will instruct our intelligence to share with our partners the information we have regarding Russia’s new assistance to the Iranian regime," detailing how Russian satellites allegedly surveilled U.S. military sites in the Gulf Arab states and provided the data to Tehran to carry out attacks.

Tehran was furious. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took to X to declare "what the freeloader in Kyiv did CANNOT GO UNANSWERED," as his ministry itself issued a statement complaining that the Islamic Republic "has never intervened in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine."

Evidently, they forgot about the untold numbers of Iran-designed and manufactured attack drones delivered to Moscow, whose army gleefully turned them westward and sent them raining down over Ukrainian cities.

Kyiv's readiness to provide the U.S. with actionable intelligence while striking Iranian assets strikes a different tone than the one America’s European NATO partners are singing.

Despite repeated requests by the Trump administration, European allies have repeatedly refused to send military assets to the Middle East, strike Iranian assets, or make any attempt to pry open the Strait of Hormuz beyond limited planning on mine-clearance and post-conflict management of the critical waterway.

Zelensky knows by now that he’ll get nowhere appealing to Trump’s sense of justice or morality—funding Ukraine’s war effort with money and missiles is evidently not "the right thing to do," in the president's mind. He does, however, love a deal.

Faced with the prospect of shouldering its own security burden and pressure from Trump to ramp up defense spending , Europe is pouring money into revitalizing its creaky defense industrial base to churn out more weapons systems, pool resources and replenish its stockpiles.

European capitals will be buying more of their own produce in the coming years, but for now they must continue to fork out billions of euros in exchange for U.S. defense equipment to cover the shortfall.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is again challenging the outdated narrative, framing Kyiv as a burden on Washington’s finances.

The framework would allow Ukrainian air, land and maritime drones to be exported to the United States for testing and evaluation, giving the U.S. military an opportunity to experiment with Ukrainian drones for multiple use cases. These drones could also be reviewed as part of the Pentagon’s "Drone Dominance" procurement program, potentially paving the way for joint manufacturing of Ukrainian-designed drones on U.S. soil.

Here, Washington is behind the curve: Ukraine has already struck deals with the EU, several European states and Canada to export its drones and create joint ventures to bolster manufacturing capacity.

In the meantime, Kyiv is doing the White House another favor—consulting with Gulf Arab states on how to improve their air defense systems in the face of Iranian aggression. In March, weeks after Iranian missiles and drones battered military bases and energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and beyond, hundreds of drone and air defense specialists from Ukraine were dispatched to the Gulf to share their knowledge from four years of shooting down Russian projectiles.

Kyiv may still need U.S. support in the form of Patriot air defense systems, but Kyiv’s challenge is one of volume, not competence or capability. Far from requesting American missiles for nothing in return, Ukraine is sharing its cutting-edge technology and know-how, licensing Ukrainian systems for production in allied countries, and appears willing to create export channels for drones that have been adapted under Russian fire. In other words—the kind of reciprocity Trump expects of his allies.

"At tremendous cost, Ukraine has been acquiring unique experience in high-end conventional conflict against a peer adversary. That operational experience has increasingly fed into military-industrial-technical expertise, which Ukraine is taking steps to market and export," Parakilas said.

"That doesn't mean Ukraine doesn't need American support any...

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