Trump freezes military aid to Ukraine to undermine Zelensky
The US president makes a veiled threat to Ukraine and says that if he doesn't want peace, "I don't think he'll be around for long"
WashingtonThe retaliation was not long in coming. Donald Trump has applied a punitive measure and frozen military aid to Kiev. The decision, announced early Tuesday morning, adds more pressure on Ukraine to force Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate an end to the war on the terms dictated by Moscow. According to American media such as Bloomberg and the Fox network, the freeze is expected to remain in place until the Ukrainian president demonstrates a real willingness to stop the fighting.
Trump's blackmail comes just days after of the humiliation to which he and his vice president, JD Vance, Zelensky submitted to the Oval Office of the White House, demanding respect and gratitude for Washington's contribution to the war effort. The freezing of military aid to Kiev confirms Trump's break with the historic transatlantic relationship that emerged during World War II and consolidated with the founding of NATO.
Speaking to reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Monday, Trump again criticized Zelensky: "I think he should be more grateful, because this country has been by his side in good times and bad." And he also again accused the Ukrainian leader of not wanting to give up territories: "It shouldn't be so difficult to negotiate. [A peace agreement] could be closed very quickly. Now, perhaps someone doesn't want to go, and if someone doesn't want to go, I think that person won't be around for long."
The possibility of suspending military aid was already on the table, and Trump had in fact met with members of his cabinet on Monday afternoon to discuss its exact terms. Among others, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The freeze is immediate and also affects all equipment that has not entered Ukraine, including weapons in air traffic and on ships waiting in Poland, according to Bloomberg. Pentagon data indicates that $3.85 billion that had been authorized by Congress still remains to be sent to Ukraine.
Since Zelensky was invited to leave the White House last Friday, after the ambush in front of the cameras, there was already talk of a possible suspension of the shipment of weapons. In total, it affects more than $1 billion in packages that were already in process and ordered. However, de facto, military aid to Kiev had already practically stopped.
In principle, funds already allocated by Congress cannot be unilaterally revoked by the president, it is necessary to go through other legislative processes, but since Trump came to power he has not stopped invading the powers of the legislature via executive orders.
However, the facts had already preceded the words, although they had not generated as much noise as Trump and Vice President JD Vance shout at Zelensky. Since the Republican came to the White House, arms shipments to Ukraine had been slowing down to almost freezing. The booing has now served as a pretext to finish the job.
First warning to Truth Social
After a relatively quiet weekend for Trump, who on Friday left for Mar-a-Lago to play golf with the statement that Zelensky could return when he was "ready" to negotiate peace, the escalation of tensions resumed on Monday. The American president published in the morning a post on Truth Social quite explicit. Trump shared a news item in which Zelensky said that the end of the war with Russia is "very far away." "This is the worst statement Zelensky could have made, and the United States will not tolerate it much longer!" the American president responded. "This man does not want peace as long as he has the support of the United States, and Europe, at the meeting they had with Zelensky, He flatly stated that they cannot do the job without the US," he added.
The US president continues to twist reality to portray the conflict as if it were a war between two equal countries, when in reality Russia was the one who started the war by invading Ukraine in 2022, preceded by annexation.
After not even offering him a seat at the negotiating table with Russia on the future of Ukraine, the Republican wants to redraw Zelensky's image as the one who makes it impossible to end the war as long as he has the military support of the US. The demands that Trump is making of the Ukrainian – which basically seem like a surrender – have not been made at any point to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. On the contrary, negotiations had not started and Washington was already making concessions to the Kremlin: it does not see it possible to recover the borders prior to the illegal annexation of Crimea, Ukraine cannot enter NATO and the country at war should hold elections.
Zelensky, who on Friday on Fox already said that he wanted to count on the support of the US, tweeted shortly after to X. In a kind of indirect response, the Ukrainian president insisted that Ukraine wants "a real peace" and added: "We have a lot of hope in the support of the US to achieve peace."
Trump has turned the pressure on Ukraine to accept the agreement with Russia into a campaign of attrition against Zelensky. The distortion of the causes of the war is not only intended to justify the break with Kiev in the eyes of the Republican faithful, but also to undermine the Ukrainian president's popularity at home.
50 days without sending weapons to Kiev
By the time Zelensky set foot in the White House on Friday, he was already aware that the flow of military aid was almost at a standstill. At the time of the meeting, the Pentagon had not announced any new arms package for Ukraine for fifty days, and the new administration had not said anything about approving any other items.
The latest arms shipment announcement by the Pentagon was on January 9, during the final days of the Biden administration. It was worth about $500 million and included air defense missiles, ground equipment and equipment to support Ukraine in using F-16s. Since the Russian invasion began three years ago, military aid shipments by the Biden administration were announced every two weeks. During the final days of his term, the former president accelerated the shipments in an attempt to strengthen Kiev's position in the face of Trump's arrival in power.