Europe's peace plan and a US aid pause: 3 March 2025
A look back at the day Washington halted military aid to Kyiv, hours after European leaders unveiled a coalition to back a peace plan.
What did Europe's diplomacy achieve over a weekend, and how quickly did Washington change the picture? On 3 March 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump paused all U.S. military aid to Ukraine with immediate effect, a decision that landed one day after European leaders gathered in London to shape a path towards peace.
A weekend of European diplomacy
On 1 March 2025, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met UK prime minister Keir Starmer in London. They signed off on a British loan of GB£2.26 billion to buy military supplies for Ukraine.
The following day, 2 March 2025, Starmer hosted the London summit, formally titled the Securing Our Future London Summit. It was called to draft a peace plan for the Russian invasion of Ukraine to take to the United States. Afterwards, Starmer announced that a "coalition of the willing" was working on a Ukraine peace plan that it would present to Trump. Zelenskyy then met King Charles III at Sandringham.
The coalition, led by the United Kingdom and France, was later described as grouping 34 countries that pledged strengthened support for Ukraine. They also said they were ready to join a peacekeeping force on Ukrainian territory, to be deployed only once Ukraine and Russia sign a comprehensive ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
The pause
The pause announced on 3 March 2025 covered all U.S. military aid to Ukraine. It followed directly on the European effort to present a joint plan to Washington, and it meant that the weekend's diplomacy unfolded against a sudden change in American support. The British loan, agreed two days earlier, was one of the concrete measures Europe had put on the table for military supplies.
The war continued
The fighting did not pause. On 2 March 2025, one person was killed in a Russian drone strike in Kherson.
Seen from the end of that weekend, the sequence was stark: European leaders moved to coordinate, financing and planning on one side, while the United States halted its military aid on the other. How those two tracks would fit together was left open on 3 March 2025.
