Trump looks set to resume weapons to Ukraine halted by his Pentagon adviser
(Originally published July 8 in “What in the World“) Trump appears set to lift his pause on U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine after saying he didn’t order it in the first place.
Faced with shrinking arms stockpiles, the Pentagon last week suspended arms shipments to Ukraine. Many of the arms promised to Kyiv by former President Joe Biden were being pulled straight from the existing U.S. arsenal, with the Pentagon then free to replace them with shiny new ones. But with arms contractors struggling to ramp up production, the drawdowns were leaving some worried that Ukraine’s need for arms was coming at a cost to U.S. military preparedness.
But Putin’s massive assault on Ukraine last week appears to have convinced the toddler-in-chief that the Russian President is one bad hombre. Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday that he hadn’t ordered the pause. Instead, the order appears to have been ordered by Trump’s Pentagon policy chief, Elbridge Colby, contradicting Trump’s statements in support of continuing military aid to Ukraine at last month’s NATO Summit in the Hague. But Colby was only acting on orders, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, to conduct a review of Pentagon stockpiles by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And Trump told Zelensky on Friday that it was he who had ordered the review after bombing Iran June 21. Oops.
Whoever ordered it, the Keystone Administration’s pause suspended shipments of interceptor missiles for Ukraine’s Patriot anti-missile batteries, as well as AGM Hellfire missiles, AIM-120 anti-aircraft missiles, and the GMLRS rockets fired by Ukraine’s Biden-granted Himars rocket launchers.
But then Trump spoke with Putin by phone last Thursday, a call he said “didn’t make any progress” and left him “very disappointed.” After their chat, Russia launched what the Ukrainian military said was the largest barrage of missiles and drones at Ukrainian city since its invasion in February 2022.
Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg is scheduled to meet in Rome with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, followed by more meetings in Kyiv. Many say resuming the flow of weapons is likely to top the agenda. Norway and the Netherlands, meanwhile, are sending F-35s to join NATO forces in Poland defending arms shipments to Ukraine.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have resumed attacks on Red Sea shipping for the first time since May, forcing the crew of a Greek-owned bulk carrier to abandon ship. They have also fired at least three ballistic missiles at Israel in the past week, prompting an Israeli airstrike Monday against two Yemeni ports and a power plant. The Houthis said they retaliated with another ballistic missile and several drones.