A White House official confirmed in a statement to media on Monday that President Donald Trump has suspended all military aid to Ukraine “to ensure it contributes to resolving” the conflict.
“The president has made it 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 assistance to make sure it is contributing to a solution,” a White House official said.
According to Fox News, which reported this information before official confirmation, the suspension applies to all forms of aid, including weapons already on their way to Ukraine, including in Poland.
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On Monday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not want peace as long as he has America's support, saying he “will not tolerate it for too long.” He was responding to Zelensky's statement that the end of the war is “a long, long way off.”
“This is the worst statement Zelensky could make, and America will not tolerate it for much longer!” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social. “That’s what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want peace as long as he has America’s support, and Europe stated directly in a meeting with Zelensky that it can’t do the job without the US – not a great statement as far as a show of force against Russia goes. What are they thinking?” he asked.
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The announcement came just hours after President Trump publicly claimed he “didn’t even talk about it.” He has repeatedly accused the Ukrainian president in recent days of not wanting peace — allegedly unlike Vladimir Putin.
“If someone doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be with us for very long. That person won't be listened to for very long, because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe that the Ukrainian people definitely want to make a deal,” he said.
He also said he would announce something about a minerals deal with Ukraine during Tuesday's address to a joint session of Congress . A little later, Republican congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, co-chair of the Ukraine parliamentary group, announced that the deal would be signed soon, which “will create a strong, long-term economic partnership between the United States and Ukraine, and as a result, it will naturally translate into security support.”
In turn, on Sunday, US Finance Secretary Scott Bessent stated that a necessary condition for signing an agreement on partnership in the extraction of natural resources in Ukraine is “that the Ukrainian authorities want a peace agreement.”
The Trump administration has not passed any new military aid package for Ukraine since coming to power, but has allowed the flow of weapons under the latest package approved by Joe Biden. Trump still has the authority to transfer $4 billion worth of weapons from American warehouses to Kiev. During Friday's meeting with Zelensky, he declared that this would continue, although he expressed hope that it would not be necessary in large quantities.
Vance: We'll Resume Talks with Ukraine If Zelensky Makes Serious Peace Proposal
If the president of Ukraine calls and makes a serious proposal about how he intends to engage in the peace process, we can go back to talking, Vice President JD Vance said Monday in an interview with Fox News, adding that the U.S. is “already working” on the details of the agreement with the Russians.
Vance spoke in an interview with Fox News about the conditions the White House is setting for returning to talks with Ukraine following the spat involving him, President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I think if (Zelensky) calls and makes a serious proposal about how he's going to engage in this process… Look, there are details that really matter, that we're already working on with the Russians. We've already talked to some of our allies. He needs to engage seriously on the details. I think when that happens, that's when we'll definitely want to talk,” Vance said.
He also said that during the meeting in the Oval Office, Zelensky showed disrespect and adopted a demanding attitude, but that the White House is able to ignore it as long as Ukraine is ready for serious talks.
He assessed that Zelensky is still not ready for this, but “ultimately he will be, because he has to.”
Vice President Vance has criticized Ukraine for seeking security guarantees from the United States but refusing to discuss the details of its territorial concessions. He has also argued that the minerals agreement was intended to provide stronger security guarantees for Ukraine than the presence of European military forces.
“If you want real security guarantees, if you want to make sure that Vladimir Putin doesn’t invade Ukraine again, the best security guarantee is to provide Americans with economic benefits in the future of Ukraine. That’s a much better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t been at war in 30 or 40 years,” Vance said. But he added that you can’t achieve that by “insulting the president and refusing to implement his peace plan.”
Vance also criticized the expressions of European solidarity towards Zelensky, claiming that they were doing him a disservice because “their own societies are saying that they will not finance this war indefinitely” and in private conversations these leaders say the same thing and talk about the need for Zelensky to join the talks.
“I honestly don't care what Europeans say publicly. I care what they say privately and what they should tell President Zelensky. This can't go on forever, this bloodshed, this killing, this economic devastation, it's making things worse for everyone,” he said.
At the same time, Vance stated that Vladimir Putin “said he wants to talk about peace” and the Trump administration's attitude towards these declarations is “trust, but verify.”
“You have to accept that President Trump not only assumes that everything the Russians tell him is true, he negotiates with them. There is give and take, there is trust, but there is checking. That's called diplomacy,” the politician said.
Recounting Friday's spat in the Oval Office, Vance also confirmed reports that the Ukrainians wanted to return to talks after the spat, but Trump said there was nothing to talk about since they were not willing to discuss his peace plan.
Speaking about his own role in the spat, which began with his entry into the conversation, Vance claimed he wanted to “de-escalate the tension.” He also claimed that for the first half-hour of the meeting, Trump did his best to be polite and pleasant to Zelensky, “even when Zelensky was teasing him, even when Zelensky was saying things that (Vance) thought were not true.”
Zelensky: We count on US support on the path to peace
Ukraine continues to cooperate with partners and counts on the support of the United States on the path to peace, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday at Platform X. We are preparing to take further steps in the near future, he added.
“We are working together with the United States and our European partners and we are very much counting on US support on the path to peace. Peace is needed as soon as possible,” Zelensky wrote.
“It is very important that we try to make our diplomacy truly substantive in order to end this war as soon as possible. We need real peace, and Ukrainians want it the most, because the war is destroying our cities and towns. We are losing our people. We must stop the war and guarantee security,” Zelensky stressed.
“The president has made it 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 assistance to make sure it is contributing to a solution,” a White House official said.
According to Fox News, which reported this information before official confirmation, the suspension applies to all forms of aid, including weapons already on their way to Ukraine, including in Poland.
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
