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The Trump administration has reportedly paused all military aid to Ukraine.
The decision, reported by Bloomberg News, comes after a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday descended into chaos amid a larger fraying of the U.S.-Ukraine alliance.
The president is reportedly reviewing whether Zelensky is willing to engage in good-faith efforts at making peace with Russia, a Defense Department official told the outlet.
“This is not permanent termination of aid, it’s a pause,” a Trump administration official told Fox News.
The decision will pause more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition for Ukraine that’s been ordered or is in the production process, The New York Times reports.
It will also halt hundreds of millions of dollars of arms tied to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which Ukraine uses U.S. funds to buy gear from American defense firms, per the paper.
“President Trump is the only leader in the world right now who even has a chance at bringing an enduring and lasting end to the war in Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Monday evening, though he didn’t directly address the aid pause.
Any major, long-term change in the flow of U.S. military support to Ukraine could have disastrous impacts on the country’s defense, given that officials have said Ukraine only has supplies to keep fighting Russia at current levels until the summer.
A Trump official told The Associated Press they want to see that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is “committed” to reaching a peace deal with Russia, and fast.
The official added that the dramatic move is meant to ensure continued support is “contributing to a solution.”
Just days ago, the U.S. and Ukraine looked set to ink a rare minerals deal that would give America access to Ukrainian resources, which both sides hoped would deepen ties between the countries as part of the larger peace process to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
However, the tide quickly turned during the televised Friday meeting, with the Republican administration accusing Zelensky of overstepping and being ungrateful when he began discussing the need for deeper security guarantees to deter further aggression from Russia.
The Ukrainians were then asked to leave the White House, and Trump allies soon began calling for Zelensky’s resignation.
Things got even worse at the beginning of this week, after Zelensky expressed his view that a peace deal was “very, very far away.”
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote on Truth Social this morning.
Ukraine’s European allies have suggested making up for waning U.S. support and installing a peacekeeping force inside of Ukraine backed by some form of U.S. guarantees.
The aid pause is something of a flashback to the first Trump administration, in which the Republican attempted to withhold military aid to Zelensky to pressure the country into announcing an investigation into Trump’s 2020 election opponent, Joe Biden.