Pentagon Under Scrutiny Over Decision to Halt Weapons to Ukraine
Lawmakers, former diplomats and experts questioned the Trump administration’s decision to halt the supply of some air-defense weapons to Ukraine, saying the move risks prolonging the war with Russia and leaving the country more vulnerable to stepped-up missile and drone barrages.
They also challenged the administration’s argument that US stockpiles are running low. While those numbers are classified, the weapons Ukraine needs most aren’t urgently required elsewhere and there was no immediate need to deny the country weapons that were already on their way, they said.
“I understand there are threats in the Indo-Pacific area and in the Middle East and we should be replenishing stockpiles but the solution is to produce more, not withhold it from Ukraine,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said in an interview.
The decision to suspend some deliveries of air-defense missiles and artillery shells caught Ukraine and its allies off guard, especially since it came just days after President Donald Trump suggested he’d be willing to send more Patriot missiles to Ukraine. It was cast as part of a broader review aimed at helping the US achieve its goals in Ukraine while maintaining readiness elsewhere.
One NATO ally is pressing the Defense Department to reconsider the move, according to a European official familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
Blumenthal and others said the move runs contrary to Trump’s goal of ending the war and gives Russia an advantage. Trump has stated repeatedly his desire to bring about a permanent end to the war and has called on President Vladimir Putin to do so.
The move to halt these weapons deliveries “is inconsistent with a number of very strong steps that President Trump and his team took last week,” said John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. That was a reference to an agreement made at a NATO summit to boost defense and related infrastructure spending to 5% of GDP.
At a briefing on Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the US wasn’t pausing all weapons flows to Ukraine. She denied it was a cessation of all US assistance to Ukraine.
Russia welcomed the halt in weapons deliveries, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the decision will bring a settlement closer.
The administration has yet to give a full accounting of the weapons it’s halted, but reports said they include Patriot missiles, artillery shells, Stinger air-defense systems and Hellfire missiles. Russia has ramped up long-range strikes, particularly with Shahed-136 attack UAVs, targeting Ukrainian population centers. In June, Russia launched 33% more Shahed-136 drones than in May, according to Ukrainian air force data.
European partners have provided some air defense systems to Ukraine that can intercept Shahed drones and cruise missiles, but are “useless against Russian ballistic missiles,” said Bloomberg Economics geoeconomics analyst Alex Kokcharov.
Former officials questioned the administration’s rationale about stockpile shortages. In a guest essay for the New York Times, former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the main target of the pause, a program known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, uses federal funds to buy weapons directly from manufacturers for delivery to Ukraine.
Under the program, the Pentagon has also been able to replace what it sends to Ukraine with newer munitions.
The USAI deliveries “are sourced from procurement contracts, not from the Pentagon’s stockpiles, and are distinct from orders for the U.S. military,” Sullivan wrote. “The administration may not want to say it, but the reality appears to be that the president is winding down U.S. security assistance to Ukraine.”
Yet the move was not totally unexpected. Earlier this year, the US stopped providing intelligence that’s helped Ukraine target Russian forces, and Trump suspended military assistance after an Oval Office visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy descended into a shouting match.
The weapons cutoff will be most acutely felt by Ukraine’s air defenses, but the inability of European partners to make up for the loss of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems in the near term will reduce Kyiv’s ability to conduct long-range strikes on Russia, according to retired rear admiral Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“Vladimir Putin will view this Pentagon decision as a green light to ignore Trump’s warnings to stop,” Montgomery said.
With assistance from Eric Martin.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
