US temporarily suspends military aid – DW – 03/04/2025

US President Donald Trump’s administration is temporarily suspending US military aid to Ukraine, the White House confirmed.

Trump has made it unmistakably clear that his focus is on peace, the White House told the dpa news agency.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that aid would resume once Trump determined that Ukraine was committed to peace negotiations with Russia.

The suspension is effective immediately and affects more than $1 billion (€950 million) worth of weapons and ammunition already ordered or in the process of being delivered, according to the report. 

During his campaign, Trump questioned the need for US aid to Ukraine. And after a tense exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday, he openly threatened to withdraw all US assistance.

Political commentator Ethan Bearman says Trump’s decision to pause military aid to Ukraine marks a “new era” in US policy. 

The US decision to freeze aid to Ukraine strengthens Russia’s position and makes peace harder to achieve, said Benjamin Haddad, France’s junior minister for Europe.

“Fundamentally, if you want peace, does a decision to suspend arms to Ukraine reinforce peace or does it make it more distant? It makes it more distant, because it only strengthens the hand of the aggressor on the ground, which is Russia,” Haddad told broadcaster France 2.

The White House confirmed Monday that US President Donald Trump’s administration is temporarily suspending US military aid to Ukraine.

The move comes just days after Trump clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.

US Vice President JD Vance called for Washington and Kyiv to sign a rare minerals deal, arguing it would enhance Ukraine’s security.

“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 for the Fox News broadcaster.

A Ukrainian delegation left the White House on Friday before the agreement could be signed after US President Donald Trump had a public spat with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

While speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Zelenskyy had insisted that US “security guarantees” were necessary for any ceasefire deal with Russia to hold.

In the Monday interview, Vance argued that the minerals deal showed to Ukrainians that the US had a “long-term investment” in Ukraine.

“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,” Vance said.

The UK and France have suggested that they could send contingents as part of a European peacekeeping force to uphold a ceasefire in Ukraine. Moscow has flat out rejected the presence of any European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine.

Vance argued that Zelenskyy had not shown a “willingness to engage” the US in talks, but added that the “door is open” if the Ukrainian president is willing to “talk peace.”

“it’s important for Zelenskyy and Putin to come to the negotiating table,” he stressed.

He said that European states needed to be “realistic” on the likely outcome of the war.

US President Donald Trump on Monday ordered a pause in military aid to Kyiv.

The temporary suspension comes just days after Trump clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House.

Multiple news agencies cited an unnamed White House official as saying that the US was “pausing and reviewing” its aid to “ensure that it is contributing to a solution” to the war with Russia.

Trump has repeatedly called for an end to the war in Ukraine and for Kyiv to give the US access to rare minerals in order to pay Washington back for its support.

Earlier on Monday, Trump criticized Zelenskyy for suggesting that the end of the war was still likely “very, very far away.”

Trump said that the remarks were “the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!”