President Trump ordered a pause on all US military aid to Ukraine Monday, days after he kicked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky out of the White House following a heated Oval Office meeting between the leaders.
The pause will remain in effect until Ukrainian officials demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace negotiations, a White House official told The Post.
“The President has been clear that he is focused on peace,” the official said. “We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well.”
“We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution.”
The official noted that the temporary pause is a direct response to Zelensky’s conduct over the last week.
Trump has ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to execute the directive, which will halt the shipment of all US military equipment not already in Ukraine, including weapons in Europe that were heading toward the war-torn country.
“This is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause,” a Trump administration official told Fox News. “The orders are going out right now.”
The official noted that the temporary aid stoppage is a direct response to Zelensky’s conduct over the last week.
Trump was scheduled to meet with National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday to discuss the possibility of a freeze, which would force European allies to take over as the primary entities assisting Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“This is going to be part of a larger pivot away from conflicts in Europe and a pivot towards building alliances in Latin America and in the Western Hemisphere,” a source close to the White House said, referencing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Argentinian President Javier Milei and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado Parisca as potential beneficiaries of a Ukraine-aid freeze.
The US has provided Ukraine with more military aid than any other single country in the world since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
The Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker pegs US financial support at $119 billion, including some $64 billion in military aid.
Meanwhile, the European Union has given Ukraine $53 billion in military support.
Massive US commitments to Ukraine that predate the Trump administration, including a $500 million so-called “presidential drawdown authority” package signed by former President Joe Biden in his final weeks in the White House, could be affected by the pause.
That package included missiles for air defense; air-to-ground munitions; and equipment to support Ukraine’s use of F-16s among other pieces of weaponry and ammunition.
Trump has bemoaned that the US isn’t getting anything back from Kyiv for supporting the war effort.
Tension between the commander in chief and Zelensky came to a head last week when the two world leaders, as well as Vice President JD Vance, verbally sparred in the Oval Office.
Trump and Vance both called Zelensky “disrespectful” last Friday for trying to discuss security guarantees beyond a mineral rights deal that was expected to be signed later that day.
Zelensky and his Ukrainian delegation were asked to leave the White House after the meeting, and the mineral deal went unsigned.
The Ukrainian president refused to apologize after the disastrous meeting, telling Fox News anchor Bret Baier that he was “not sure that we did something bad” during the confab.
Trump later said that his main takeaway from the meeting was that Zelesnky wanted to “fight, fight, fight” against Russia – with enhanced US backing – and was not actually seeking peace.
On Sunday, Zelensky insisted that “an agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet” – a remark that further irked Trump.
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” the president 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?”
