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President Trump has ordered a pause on U.S. military aid going to assist Ukraine in its war against Russia, the biggest step he’s taken so far to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into peace talks.
“The president has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well,” a White House official said in a statement.
“We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” the official said.
The official said the pause applies to all military aid not already on the ground in Ukraine, including munitions, anti-tank weapons and other materials the U.S. has provided to the war-torn country since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Mr. Trump’s pause of military aid is the latest sign that his relationship with Mr. Zelenskyy has devolved. Though the Ukrainian leader has told reporters that he thinks the alliance with the U.S. was salvageable, it does not appear that Mr. Trump feels the same way.
The two leaders had been snipping at each other on social media over the past week with Mr. Trump blasting the Ukrainian president as a “dictator without elections” and Mr. Zelenskyy firing back that his U.S. counterpart lives in a “bubble” of Russian disinformation.
The two men got into a shouting match during Mr. Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House last week, an encounter that shook U.S. allies and was instantly celebrated in the Kremlin.
At one point, Mr. Trump warned Mr. Zelenskyy that he didn’t “have the cards” to win this war on his own and threatened to walk away from peace negotiations. The Ukrainian leader said he could not sign any minerals deal that did not have explicit U.S. security guarantees to continue to support Kyiv’s defense.
“You’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out,” Mr. Trump said during the exchange. “And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”
Mr. Zelenskyy then rankled some in the Trump administration by refusing to apologize when given an opportunity in a Fox News interview.
Democrats immediately slammed the decision by Mr. Trump, accusing him of bailing on a U.S. ally and giving Russia an advantage in its war on Ukraine.
“Trump cutting off this aid isn’t a sign of strength, it’s one of weakness. He is bowing [to] Putin and making us less safe. Republicans must publicly denounce this,” said Rep. Mark Takano, California Democrat and ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
Rep. Joe Courtney, Connecticut Democrat and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, called the move “capitulation to Putin’s illegal unprovoked invasion.”
“Unless Putin ‘pauses’ drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, there is no justification for President Trump to defy the intent of Congress that voted last year to send military aid to the brave people of Ukraine who are defending their freedom and homeland,” he wrote on X.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelenskyy continued the back-and-forth into Monday. Mr. Zelenskyy said Sunday night that a peace agreement was “very, very far away.’
Asked about a proposed European initiative to halt the fighting, the Ukrainian leader cautioned that “we are talking about the first steps today, and, therefore, until they are on paper, I would not like to talk about them in great detail.”
“An agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet,” he added.
Mr. Trump wasted no time pushing back on Mr. Zelenskyy’s statement. The comments contradicted Mr. Trump’s view that the window for a peace agreement could close quickly if not reached soon and that thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers will die in the meantime.
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. — Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?” the U.S. leader wrote.
Despite the rancor, Mr. Trump insisted Monday that the minerals deal – which would give the U.S. control of Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals – isn’t dead and he’d talk more about it during his joint address to Congress on Tuesday night.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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