UNITEDStates President Donald Trump has temporarily suspended, with immediate effect, the delivery of all American military aid to Ukraine, just days after an unprecedented showdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. A report in ‘The New York Times’ quoted a senior administration official as saying that Trump temporarily suspended the delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine and that the order takes effect immediately, affecting “more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order”.

 

The report said Trump’s decision to halt military aid “resulted from a series of meetings” at the White House between the US leader and his senior national security aides.The official said “the order would be in effect until” Trump determined that Ukraine had demonstrated a commitment to peace negotiations with Russia. The order also pauses “hundreds of millions of dollars in aid through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides funds that Kyiv can use only to buy new military hardware directly from US defence companies.”

 

According to the US State Department, Washington has tilldateprovidedUSD65.9billioninmilitaryassistancesince Russia launched its premeditated, unprovoked, and brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and approximately USD 69.2 billioninmilitaryassistancesince Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014. This latest setback for Ukraine in the third year of its warwithRussiacomesjustdays afterTrump andVicePresident J D Vance had a heated verbal exchange with Zelenskyy, who was visiting the White House last Friday and the two countries were all set to sign a rare mineral deal.