The US has halted some weapons shipments to Kyiv, the White House has said, as Russia’s war against Ukraine has intensified.
The decision was taken “to put America’s interests first” following a Department of Defense review of US “military support and assistance to other countries”, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said on Tuesday.
The US has sent tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, leading some in the Trump administration to voice concerns that US stockpiles are too low.
The Ukrainian government has not commented on the announcement. US officials did not immediately say which shipments were being halted.
Air defence missiles and precision munitions are understood to be among the weapons affected, according to the Reuters news agency.
The Department of Defense “continues to provide the President with robust options to continue military aid to Ukraine,” said Elbridge Colby, the US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
At the same time, Colby added, “the Department is rigorously examining and adapting its approach to achieving this objective while also preserving U.S. forces’ readiness for Administration defense priorities.”
A US official said the move was based on concerns about US military stockpiles falling too low, the BBC’s US media partner CBS News has reported.
“The strength of the United States Armed Forces remains unquestioned – just ask Iran,” Kelly added, referring to US strikes at three Iranian nuclear sites last month.
The decision comes shortly after US President Donald Trump met with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky at the Nato summit in the Netherlands last week.
On that occasion, Trump said US officials “are going to see if we can make some of them available” when asked by the BBC about providing extra Patriot anti-missile systems to Ukraine.
Referring to his conversation with Zelensky, Trump said: “We had a little rough sometimes, but he couldn’t have been nicer.”
The two had a heated confrontation in the Oval Office in March this year. Afterwards, Trump said he was pausing military aid to Ukraine that had been earmarked by the previous Biden administration. Intelligence sharing with Ukraine was also suspended.
But both pauses were subsequently lifted.
In late April, the US and Ukraine signed a deal that would give the US access to Ukraine’s mineral reserves in exchange for military assistance.
Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday – the first time in over two-and-a-half years.
They spoke on the phone for more than two hours, Macron’s office said, adding that the French president urged a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Putin hit back by blaming the West for the conflict. A Kremlin statement said Putin reminded Macron that Western countries had “for many years ignored Russia’s security interests” and “created an anti-Russian bridgehead in Ukraine”.
The US military aid suspension comes as Russia stepped up its war against Ukraine.
Over the weekend, Russia launched one of its largest aerial attacks on Ukraine since the start of the war, using more than 500 different types of weapons, including drones, ballistic and cruise missiles.
On Tuesday, three people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on a Russian factory in Izhevsk, more than 1,000km (620 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.
