The US has halted some weapons shipments to Kyiv, the White House has said, as Russia’s war against Ukraine has intensified.
The decision was taken “to put America’s interests first” following a Department of Defense review of US “military support and assistance to other countries”, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said on Tuesday.
The US has sent tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, leading some in the Trump administration to voice concerns that US stockpiles are too low.
The Ukrainian government has not commented on the announcement. US officials did not immediately say which shipments were being halted.
Air defence missiles and precision munitions are understood to be among the weapons affected, according Reuters news agency. Officials told US media that the pause involved deliveries of Patriot air defence missiles, precision artillery rounds and other missile systems used by Ukraine.
The decision comes at a difficult time for Ukraine, which said it had endured its biggest aerial attack since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion at the weekend, from more than 500 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles.
The Pentagon’s move is based on concerns that US military stockpiles are falling too low, a US official told CBS News, although Anna Kelly stressed that “the strength of the United States Armed Forces remains unquestioned – just ask Iran”.
Separately, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby said in a statement that the defense department “continues to provide the President with robust options to continue military aid to Ukraine”.
However, he added “the Department is rigorously examining and adapting its approach to achieving this objective while also preserving US forces’ readiness for Administration defense priorities.”
The pause comes less than a week after President Donald Trump discussed air defences with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the Nato summit in the Netherlands.
Trump said US officials “are going to see if we can make some of them available” when asked by the BBC about providing extra Patriot anti-missile systems to Ukraine.
Referring to his conversation with Zelensky, Trump said: “We had a little rough sometimes, but he couldn’t have been nicer.”
The two had a heated confrontation in the Oval Office in March this year. Afterwards, Trump said he was pausing military aid to Ukraine that had been earmarked by the previous Biden administration. Intelligence sharing with Ukraine was also suspended.
But both pauses were subsequently lifted.
In late April, the US and Ukraine signed a deal that would give the US access to Ukraine’s mineral reserves in exchange for military assistance.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday – the first time in over two-and-a-half years.
They spoke on the phone for more than two hours, Macron’s office said, adding that the French president had urged a ceasefire in Ukraine and for talks to start on a “solid and lasting settlement of the conflict”.
The Kremlin said Putin had “reminded Macron” that the West’s policy was to blame for the war, because it had “for many years ignored Russia’s security interests”.
Last month Russia’s long-time leader told a forum in St Petersburg that he saw Russians and Ukrainians as one people and “in that sense the whole of Ukraine is ours”.
Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.
Russia has made slow, grinding advances in Ukraine in recent months and claimed full control of the eastern Luhansk region this week. It has also claimed to have seized territory in the southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian attack killed three people at a Russian arms production factory for making drones and radars in Izhevsk, more than 1,000km (620 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
