US President Donald Trump suspended all military aid to Ukraine following his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last week, pilling pressure on Kyiv to fall in line with US efforts to broker a peace deal with Russia despite a lack of security guarantees for Ukraine.
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"We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution," media outlets quoted a White House official as saying on condition of anonymity on March 3. "The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well."
"This is not permanent termination of aid, it's a pause," Fox News quoted a Trump administration official as saying. The suspension will last until Trump determines that Ukraine's leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace, according to Bloomberg and Fox News.
“When they are willing to talk peace, I think President Trump will be the first person to pick up the phone,” Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in an interview broadcast on March 3.
If Zelenskyy called and said he was ready to "engage seriously on the details...then absolutely we want to talk to the Ukrainians," Vance added.
The pause widens the rift between Zelenskyy and the Trump administration , which split wide open at the White House meeting on February 28.
It amplifies already deafening questions about US support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion at a time when Moscow's forces have been gaining ground for many months, albeit at a massive cost in casualties, and Ukraine struggles with manpower problems and other challenges in the biggest war in Europe since 1945.
The suspension is likely to add to concerns in Kyiv and among its supporters in the West that Ukraine could be pressured into a cease-fire or a peace deal that favors Moscow.
The Kremlin welcomed the news. "If it’s true, then it’s a decision that really could push the Kyiv regime into a peace process,” Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Any disruption in the flow of US arms to the front line would rapidly weaken Ukraine's chance of beating back Russia's invasion. The suspension applies to applies to "all US military equipment not currently in Ukraine, including weapons in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in transit areas in Poland," Bloomberg reported.
The suspension "will have a bad impact, of course, if you deprive Ukraine of assistance from the United States, whether it's financial aid or military aid," independent military analyst Yury Federov told Current Time. "Military assistance includes not only supplying weapons, ammunition and so on, but it also includes supporting Ukraine by providing intelligence information."
"Most experts estimate that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be able to maintain the current pace and intensity of military operations for about six months," he said. "Whether this is correct or not is difficult to say."
How Much Aid Is Affected?
The precise amount of military aid affected is unclear, but the transfer of $3.85 billion worth of weapons authorized by Congress under Biden had not yet been allocated by the White House. No new military aid has been approved since Trump took office in January.
The US Congress has appropriated more than $180 billion in support for Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, about two-thirds of it military aid.
"First of all, the suspension of US aid could affect air defense missiles, HIMARS ammunition, and artillery," Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote on Telegram.
The United States is the only producer of HIMARS and ATACMS systems and if they run out, Ukraine's ability to strike far behind Russian lines and guard its rear positions will be compromised.
Ukrainian politicians voiced dismay at the decision and concern over the tattered ties between Kyiv and Washington.
"The dialogue with the United States must be restored immediately, because its rupture will, by and large, benefit only Putin," Iryna Friz, a lawmaker from the opposition European Solidarity bloc in Ukraine's parliament and member of the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
Friz pointed out that European leaders have also urged Zelenskyy to seek to mend relations with the Trump administration.
In the United States, Democrats in Congress immediately condemned the pause in military aid.
"My Republican colleagues who have called Putin a war criminal and promised their continued support to Ukraine must join me in demanding President Trump immediately lift this disastrous and unlawful freeze," said Representative Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York).
The military aid pause came after Zelenskyy's disastrous visit to the White House, which had been expected to produce a deal on joint development of Ukrainian rare minerals and hydrocarbon resources that Trump has cast as a crucial step toward peace between Ukraine and Russia.
Instead, a meeting before cameras in the Oval Office devolved into a vocal clash, with Trump and Vance saying that Zelenskyy should be more grateful for US support and is in no position to make demands.
The signing of the minerals deal was scrapped, Zelenskyy left the White House early, and Trump said he could "come back when he is ready for peace."
Senior US officials blamed Zelenskyy for the blowup and called on him to apologize. On March 3, Trump suggested his patience was running out, criticizing Zelenskyy's resistance to the prospect of a quick cease-fire without the kind of concrete security guarantees Kyiv has been seeking from the United States.
What Could End The Military Aid Pause?
"What we need to hear from President Zelenskyy is that he has regret for what happened, he's ready to sign this minerals deal, and that he's ready to engage in peace talks," White House national-security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News earlier on March 3.
SEE ALSO: Why Did Zelenskyy Reject Calls For A Quick Cease-Fire In The Russia-Ukraine War?After Zelenskyy was quoted as saying the end of the war is "very, very far away," Trump wrote in a social media post: "This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!"
In the Fox interview, Vance said that the door remains open to the Ukrainians, but that European leaders must tell Zelenskyy that the war can’t go on forever. He said they admit this in private but in public tend to "puff" Zelenskyy up.
He also defended Trump's position that giving Washington an economic interest in the future of Ukraine will serve as a sound security guarantee.
"If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine," Vance said in the interview.
"That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years," he added. Trump said on March 3 that he does not believe the minerals deal is dead.
SEE ALSO: Can The EU Stay Relevant In Ukraine Talks?With US support deeper in doubt after the Oval Office clash, European leaders moved to take more control of potential peace negotiations and to step up military aid to Ukraine.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on March 3 that there were a "number of options on the table" for a cease-fire agreement to at least temporarily halt fighting sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago.
The statement came after French President Emmanuel Macron told the newspaper Le Figaro that he thought a one-month truce on air, sea, and energy infrastructure would give allies time to assess Russian President Vladimir Putin's commitment to a full and lasting cease-fire.
'Manufactured Escalation,' Says Germany's Merz
Meanwhile, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on March 3 that she would inform member states about a "rearm Europe plan" as European governments scramble to mitigate their growing differences with the United States over the war in Ukraine.
"We need a massive surge in defense, without any question. We want lasting peace, but lasting peace can only be built on strength, and strength begins with strengthening ourselves," von der Leyen said.
In some of the strongest European comments yet on the White House standoff, Germany's likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, referred to what he called "manufactured escalation" at the meeting, a thinly veiled criticism of Trump and his administration.
"It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office," Merz told a news conference in Hamburg on March 3, adding that Europe "must now show that we are in a position to act independently."
Despite intense and ongoing discussions on boosting Europe's own defense capacities and alarm over warming rhetoric between Moscow and Washington, European leaders say engaging the new US administration is a priority.
Merz said he would "advocate doing everything to keep the Americans in Europe."