The White House said that the United States has stopped shipping some weapons to Kiev due to the intensification of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
White House spokesman Anna Kelly said Tuesday the decision was to “put America’s interests first” and followed the U.S. Department of Defense’s review of “military support and assistance” by other countries.
Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, the United States has sent hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, causing the Trump administration to express concerns about the low U.S. stock in the Trump administration.
The Ukrainian government has not commented on the announcement. U.S. officials did not immediately say which goods were stopped.
Reuters reported that air defense missiles and precision ammunition will be one of the affected weapons.
A U.S. official said the move was based on concerns about U.S. military reserves, BBC’s U.S. media partner CBS News reported.
The Department of Defense “continues to provide the president with a strong option to continue providing military aid to Ukraine… Meanwhile, the department is rigorously reviewing and adapting its approach to achieving this goal, while also retaining administrative defense priorities for U.S. forces ready,” said Elbridge Colby, who kept the policy confidentiality of the Department of Defense policy.
Kelly added: “The strength of the U.S. armed forces is still unquestionable – just ask Iran.”
The decision comes shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump met with his Ukrainian rival Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in the Netherlands last week.
Trump said when asked about providing Ukraine with additional Patriot anti-missile systems, U.S. officials “will see if we can make some of them available.”
Trump refers to his conversation with Zelensky, saying: “Sometimes we’re a little rough, but he can’t be better.”
The two fought fiercely in the Oval Office in March this year. After that, Trump said he was suspending military aid to Ukraine designated by the Biden administration. It also said it would suspend intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
Both pauses were subsequently lifted.
In late April, the United States and Ukraine signed an agreement that would allow the United States to obtain Ukraine’s mineral reserves in exchange for military aid.
US military aid was suspended as Russia stepped up its war with Ukraine.
Over the weekend, Russia launched one of the largest air attacks on Ukraine since the beginning of the war, using more than 500 different types of weapons, including drones, ballistics and cruise missiles.
Three people were killed in Ukraine’s attack on a Russian factory in Izvsk on Tuesday, more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula annexed in 2014.
