US suspends all military aid to Ukraine in wake of Trump-Zelenskyy row

The Trump administration has suspended delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine, blocking billions in crucial shipments, as the White House piles pressure on Kyiv to sue for peace with Vladimir Putin.

The decision affects deliveries of ammunition, vehicles and other equipment, including shipments agreed to when Joe Biden was president.

It comes after a dramatic blow-up in the White House on Friday during which Donald Trump, infuriated over the collapse of a deal that would have given the US access to Ukraine’s mineral resources, told Volodymyr Zelenskyy he was “gambling with” a third world war. The Ukrainian president was told to come back “when he is ready for peace”.

A senior administration official told Fox News: “This is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause.” Bloomberg reported that all US military equipment not in Ukraine would be held back, including weapons in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in transit areas in Poland. It said Trump had ordered the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, to execute the pause.

Moscow celebrated the decision, with the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying the US had been “the main supplier of this war so far”.

European and Nato allies were not informed in advance, a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson said.

“This is a very important decision, and the situation is very serious,” Paweł Wroński told reporters. “This sentence may sound banal, but it has great political significance – it [the decision] was made without any information, or consultation, neither with Nato allies, nor with the Ramstein group,” he said. The Ramstein group is an alliance of 57 countries that have coordinated aid to Ukraine during the war.

Governments in Europe, fearful of an emboldened Russia during a US administration that resents a cold war-era pact to support its allies against aggression, have rushed to boost their own military spending.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced proposals on Tuesday to strengthen Europe’s defence industry and increase military capabilities by mobilising close to €800bn (£661bn). The EU is holding an emergency summit on Thursday.

The White House decision followed a meeting that included Hegseth and the vice-president, JD Vance, along with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of Ukraine’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said Trump appeared to be pushing Ukraine towards capitulation. “To stop aid now means to help Putin,” Merezhko told Reuters. “On the surface, this looks really bad. It looks like he is pushing us towards capitulation, meaning [accepting] Russia’s demands”

Razom for Ukraine, a Ukrainian advocacy group, said: “By abruptly halting military assistance to Ukraine, President Trump is hanging Ukrainians out to dry and giving Russia the green light to continue marching west. Razom for Ukraine urges the White House to immediately reverse course, resume military aid and pressure Putin to end his horrific invasion.”

The US Congress has approved $175bn (£138bn) in total assistance for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion nearly three years ago, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In December, shortly before leaving office, Biden announced an additional $5.9bn in security and budget assistance.

US assistance to Ukraine includes military aid, budgetary assistance largely delivered through a World Bank trust fund, and other funds that had been delivered through the US Agency for International Development, which has been throttled by the Trump White House.

Some of the money sent by the US to Ukraine helps the country pay the salaries of teachers and doctors, and keeps the government running.

Weapons assistance from the US has been facilitated through two programmes: presidential drawdown authority (PDA), which allows the president to quickly transfer weapons and equipment from US stocks to foreign countries without the need for congressional approval; and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), under which military equipment is procured from the defence industry.

In total, the US has pledged $31.7bn of weapons aid to Ukraine through PDA. The majority – well over $20bn, according to a Reuters analysis – has been shipped.

The announcement pertains mainly to aid that had been previously approved but not yet disbursed. Trump has not approved any new aid under his own presidential authority since taking office and a new congressional aid package appears unlikely, at least in the near term.

​US Democrats said the aid pause was dangerous. Brendan Boyle​, a congressman in Pennsylvania who is a co-chair of the congressional EU caucus, ​said it was ​“reckless, indefensible and a direct threat to our national security”​.

Earlier on Monday, Trump had expressed fresh outrage at Zelenskyy for saying the end of the war could be “very, very far away”.

Trump posted a link to an Associated Press story outlining Zelenskyy’s comments and said: “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!

“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 US. Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”

Later on Monday, Trump said Zelenskyy “won’t be around very long” unless he succumbed to pressure and made a deal on US terms.

The Trump administration was also reported to be drawing up a plan on Monday to restore ties with Russia and lift sanctions on the Kremlin.

The White House has asked the state and treasury departments to draft a list of sanctions that could be eased for US officials to discuss with Russian representatives in the coming days as part of the administration’s broad talks with Moscow on improving diplomatic and economic relations, Reuters reported, citing a US official and another person familiar with the matter.

In an interview recorded on Monday before the announcement of the suspension, Vance told Fox News that giving the US an economic interest in the future of Ukraine would serve as a security guarantee – a reference to the minerals deal about which Zelenskyy had been summoned to Washington.

“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.

Reuters contributed to this report