Our Planet Climate and Geopolitics
President Trump used an executive order last night to suspend all US military aid to Ukraine not already in the country, including weapons stockpiled in Poland.
The order affects more than $1 billion worth of equipment and could mean another $3.85 billion in funding approved by Congress is frozen.
Far from softening after a weekend of diplomacy aimed at securing a US military backstop for European operations in Ukraine, Trump used a press conference to double down on his plan for peace at any price.
He suggested that if Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky wasn’t willing to agree to US terms for a deal involving a ceasefire and American access to Ukrainian minerals, he should quit: “If somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long.”
His vice president, JD Vance, said the door to a resumption of US aid remained open, but offered no prospect of a backstop. Earlier, Trump had ridiculed European proposals as “not a great statement... in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”
Ukrainian front line operations depend on US hardware and intelligence. A halt in supplies could have an immediate effect on the battlefield. Russian forces’ slow progress in the east could speed up, encouraging Putin to delay any talks in favour of territory.
Trump’s order would “directly undermine [his] stated goal of achieving a sustainable
peace in Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War said. “Russia would leverage the cessation of US aid to Ukraine to seize more territory... and attempt to exhaust European support – the approach Putin has outlined in his theory of victory.”
