![[ rfe/rl banner ]](/wmd/library/news/images/rferl-article2.gif)
Trump Suspends Military Aid To Ukraine After Heated Clash With Zelenskyy
By RFE/RL March 04, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump suspended all military aid to Ukraine following his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last week, pilling pressure on Kyiv to fall in line with U.S. efforts to broker a peace deal with Russia despite a lack of security guarantees for Ukraine.
"We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution," media outlets quoted a White House official as saying on condition of anonymity on March 3. "The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well."
"This is not permanent termination of aid, it's a pause," Fox News quoted a Trump administration official as saying. The pause will last until Trump determines that Ukraine's leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace, according to Bloomberg and Fox News.
But the pause amplifies already deafening questions about U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion at a time when Moscow's forces have been gaining ground for many months, albeit at a massive cost in casualties, and Ukraine struggles with manpower problems and other challenges in the biggest war in Europe since 1945.
Any disruption in the flow of U.S. arms to the front line would rapidly weaken Ukraine's chance of beating back Russia's invasion. The suspension applies to applies to "all U.S. military equipment not currently in Ukraine, including weapons in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in transit areas in Poland," Bloomberg reported.
How Much Aid Is Affected?
The precise amount of military aid affected is unclear, but the transfer of $3.85 billion worth of weapons authorized by Congress under Biden had not yet been allocated by the White House. No new military aid has been approved since Trump took office in January.
The U.S. Congress has appropriated more than $180 billion in support for Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, about two-thirds of it military aid.
"First of all, the suspension of U.S. aid could affect air defense missiles, HIMARS ammunition, and artillery," Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote on Telegram.
The United States is the only producers of HIMARS and ATACMS systems and if they run out, Ukraine's ability to strike far behind Russian lines and guard its rear positions will be compromised.
"Europe can step in to meet a fair amount of Ukraine's need for artillery ammunition when combined with munitions already shipped by the U.S. early this year, Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Wall Street Journal. "The challenges will be more visilble as we get into summer."
In the event of a complete cessation of military aid from the United States, Ukraine risks losing up to 30 percent of all weapons used by the armed forces today, Oleh Katkov, editor-in-chief of the military analysis site Defense Express, told the Ukrainian outlet Suspilne.
Democrats in Congress immediately condemned the pause.
"My Republican colleagues who have called Putin a war criminal and promised their continued support to Ukraine must join me in demanding President Trump immediately lift this disastrous and unlawful freeze," said Representative Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York).
The military aid pause came after Zelenskyy's disastrous visit to the White House on February 28, which had been expected to produce a deal on joint development of Ukrainian rare minerals and hydrocarbon resources that Trump has cast as a crucial step toward peace between Ukraine and Russia.
Instead, a meeting before cameras in the Oval Office devolved into a vocal clash, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance saying that Zelenskyy should be more grateful for U.S. support and is no position to make demands.
Signing of the minerals deal was scrapped, Zelenskyy left the White House early, and Trump said he could "come back when he is ready for peace."
Senior U.S. officials blamed Zelenskyy for the blowup and called on him to apologize. On March 3, Trump suggested his patience was running out, criticizing Zelenskyy's resistance to the prospect of a quick cease-fire without the kind of concrete security guarantees Kyiv has been seeking from the United States.
What Could End The Military Aid Pause?
"What we need to hear from President Zelenskyy is that he has regret for what happened, he's ready to sign this minerals deal, and that he's ready to engage in peace talks," White House national-security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News earlier on March 3.
After Zelenskyy was quoted as saying the end of the war is "very, very far away," Trump wrote in a social media post: "This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!"
Vance said in an interview broadcast on March 3 that the door remains open to the Ukrainians.
"When they are willing to talk peace, I think President Trump will be the first person to pick up the phone," Vance told Fox News.
If Zelenskyy called and said he was ready to "engage seriously on the details...then absolutely we want to talk to the Ukrainians," he added.
With U.S. support deeper in doubt after the Oval Office clash, European leaders moved to take more control of potential peace negotiations and to step up military aid to Ukraine.
Vance said in the Fox News interview that Europeans leaders must tell Zelenskyy that the war can't go on forever. He said they admit this in private but in public tend to "puff" Zelenskyy up.
He also defended Trump's position that giving Washington an economic interest in the future of Ukraine will serve as a sound security guarantee.
"If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine," Vance said in the interview.
"That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years," he added. Trump said on March 3 that he does not believe the minerals deal is dead.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on March 3 that there were a "number of options on the table" for a cease-fire agreement to at least temporarily halt fighting sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago.
The statement came after French President Emmanuel Macron told the newspaper Le Figaro that he thought a one-month truce on air, sea, and energy infrastructure would give allies time to assess Russian President Vladimir Putin's commitment to a full and lasting cease-fire.
'Manufactured Escalation,' Says Germany's Merz
Meanwhile, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on March 3 that she would inform member states about a "rearm Europe plan" as European governments scramble to mitigate their growing differences with the United States over the war in Ukraine.
"We need a massive surge in defense, without any question. We want lasting peace, but lasting peace can only be built on strength, and strength begins with strengthening ourselves," von der Leyen said.
In some of the strongest European comments yet on the White House standoff, Germany's likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, referred to what he called "manufactured escalation" at the meeting, a thinly veiled criticism of Trump and his administration.
"It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office," Merz told a news conference in Hamburg on March 3, adding that Europe "must now show that we are in a position to act independently."
Despite intense and ongoing discussions on boosting Europe's own defense capacities and alarm over warming rhetoric between Moscow and Washington, European leaders say engaging the new U.S. administration is a priority.
Merz said he would "advocate doing everything to keep the Americans in Europe."
With reporting by AP, Bloomberg, Reuters, Fox News, and The Washington Post
Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
