The Pentagon confirmed Trump’s decision after his remarks on Monday but did not release details about the types of weapons to be sent.
“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of Defence is sending additional defensive weapons to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves while we work to secure a lasting peace and ensure the killing stops,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
Intensified attacks
Russia has scaled up its attacks on Ukraine after Trump urged both sides to agree to a truce. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to a ceasefire and has called for direct talks with Putin.
Over the past week, Russia launched an estimated 1270 drones, 39 missiles and almost 1000 powerful glide bombs at Ukraine, the Ukrainian president said on Monday.
Ukrainian rescue workers put out a fire in a building hit by a Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia on Monday.Credit: AP
Trump told Zelensky in a telephone call last Friday that he wasn’t responsible for the halt in weapons shipments to Kyiv, The Wall Street Journal reported.
While Trump has often praised Putin and repeatedly claimed he could get the Russian leader to end the war in Ukraine, he expressed frustration on Monday at the continued fighting.
“I’m not happy with President Putin at all,” he said.
That remark followed a comment before the NATO summit in Europe last month when Trump, speaking on Air Force One, told reporters about a conversation with the Russian leader.
Trump said: “Vladimir called me up, he said: ‘Can I help you with Iran?’ I said: ‘No, I don’t need help with Iran, I need help with you’.”
Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa called an urgent meeting in Kyiv with the top US diplomat to Ukraine, John Ginkel, last Wednesday to warn of the danger from the slowdown in arms deliveries.
“The Ukrainian side emphasised that any delay or slowing down in supporting Ukraine’s defence capabilities would only encourage the aggressor to continue war and terror, rather than seek peace,” Betsa said in a statement after the meeting.
‘Challenge on our hands’
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron will hold a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing on Thursday in London to discuss options for sending peacekeepers to Ukraine if there is a ceasefire.
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NATO members are struggling to produce enough air defence missiles and other armaments; however, Russia is ramping up production of missiles and drones.
Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, warned at the weekend that European countries needed a bigger industrial base to produce the weapons to defend themselves as well as Ukraine.
“We have an enormous geopolitical challenge on our hands,” Rutte told The New York Times. “And that is, first of all, Russia, which is reconstituting itself at a pace and a speed which is unparalleled in recent history. They are now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year.”
With Reuters, AP
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