Trump says the United States will resume arms shipments to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine crept into the White House dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night (Washington time). Before the meal, Trump stated, in response to reporters’ questions, that the United States was ready to send more weapons to Ukraine, just days after Washington had announced that the Pentagon had suspended some of those shipments to Kyiv.

“We have to,” Trump said. “They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard.” The president specified that the shipment he is considering will be “primarily defensive weapons,” and underscored that “so many people are dying in that mess.”

The Trump administration had earlier justified the halt in shipments by saying that U.S. military stockpiles were lower than the Pentagon had hoped.

Trump, who returned to the White House for a second term with a promise to end the war on his “first day” in the Oval Office, instead found a tough nut to crack in Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has failed to convince to come to the table for peace talks six months later. Trump and Putin spoke by phone for an hour on Thursday, and Trump later declared that he had “not made any progress.” “I’m not happy with President Putin at all,” Trump insisted to reporters at the White House on Monday.

He also insisted on one of his favorite arguments, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is something that would never have happened had he been president at the time.

Contradictory information

Last Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke by phone with Trump, insisting on the need for the United States to provide air defense resources for Ukraine. That day, Russia carried out one of the most intensive airstrikes on Kyiv in the more than three years of war. “We have agreed that we will work to increase protection in the skies. We have agreed that our teams will meet,” Zelenskiy said on social media.

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that during that call, Trump told Zelenskiy that he had “directed a review of Pentagon munitions stockpiles after the U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear sites last month, but hadn’t ordered the department to freeze the arms deliveries.” The Journal cited anonymous sources familiar with the conversation in its exclusive report.

The Pentagon confirmed last Tuesday that it had abruptly halted the supply of weapons key to Ukraine’s defense, arguing that the United States and other allies need them more urgently. Among the weapons canceled are dozens of Patriot air defense missiles, crucial for resisting long-range Russian attacks.

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