Media reports say U.S. President Trump has paused all U.S. military aid to Ukraine after angry clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
U.S. President Donald Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine following his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, a White House official said, deepening the fissure that has opened between the two one-time allies, Reuters reported on March 4.
The move reportedly comes after Trump upended U.S. policy on Ukraine and Russia upon taking office in January, adopting a more conciliatory stance towards Moscow – and after an explosive confrontation with Zelenskiy at the White House on Friday in which Trump criticized him for being insufficiently grateful for Washington's backing in the war with Russia.
"President Trump has been clear that he is focused on peace. 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 said on Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The White House reportedly had no immediate comment on the scope and amount of aid affected or how long the pause would last. The Pentagon could not provide further details.
Multiple outlets quoted the White House official as saying that Washington is reviewing whether billions of dollars given to Kyiv are contributing to a “solution” to end Ukraine’s war against invading Russian forces.
A senior administration official told Fox News that “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 added that Trump had ordered the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to execute the pause.
The Guardian says the decision followed a White House meeting that included the vice-president, JD Vance; Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
The Guardian reports that according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the US Congress has approved US$175bn in total assistance for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion nearly three years ago. In December, right before leaving office, Joe Biden announced an additional US$5.9bn in security and budget assistance.
US assistance to Ukraine reportedly 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 (USAID), which has been throttled by the Trump White House.
