United States president Donald Trump has ordered a pause to all military aid to Ukraine, putting pressure on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky days after a heated conversation in the Oval Office.
The US is one of Ukraine’s most important allies in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.
The US is holding up all pending military assistance until Trump decides Ukraine’s leaders have showed a good-faith commitment to peace, according to a senior US Defense Department official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
The US administration will also review the aid to make sure it’s contributing to a solution to the conflict, a White House official said.
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The order applies to all US military equipment not currently in Ukraine, including weapons in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in transit areas in Poland.
While the extent of the affected weapons is not immediately known, Trump had inherited from former president Joe Biden the authority to deliver US$3.85 billion (HK$29.93 billion) in weapons from US stockpiles.
Trump is eager for a quick deal to end the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour three years ago.
But when Zelensky pushed in an Oval Office meeting last week for security guarantees to ensure Russia does not violate any agreement, Trump angrily told him to come back when he’s ready for peace.
The two sides scrapped plans for a mineral-resources deal that was seen as a possible precursor to a ceasefire.
European allies are racing to come up with plans to keep Ukraine supplied with weapons and provide peacekeeping forces for a deal. But Europe lacks many of the arms and other capabilities that the US now provides. Allied officials have said weapons supplies are likely to last only until summer.
The move is a setback for hopes of detente between the two sides. Earlier Monday, Trump had kept the door open to signing the minerals deal with Ukraine, and European leaders expressed hope it could be salvaged.
“It’s a great deal for us,” Trump told reporters, adding that “I’ll let you know tomorrow” when he addresses a joint session of Congress. He said Zelensky “should be more appreciative” of the billions in US assistance his country has received to fight Russia’s invasion.
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The leaders of the United Kingdom and France, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, are drawing up a temporary ceasefire proposal to present to Trump that would allow detailed talks to begin for a durable long-term peace plan. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the aid pause could be part of Trump’s calculus.
The European leaders believe that Trump is trying to mount pressure on Zelensky to apologise and sign the minerals agreement, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing the deliberations.
The UK and France are privately urging Zelensky to repair relations with Trump and believe the US leader is still committed to a peace deal, they said.
European allies believe that Zelensky may need to grovel to Trump because a simple apology is unlikely to suffice, one of the people said.
The UK-France plan involves an initial truce between Russia and Ukraine to allow allies to work on a durable peace plan with a coalition of European troops backed by US security guarantees.
It would also allow time to see whether Russia is serious about ending its aggression toward Ukraine, the people said.
