The halted munitions include interceptors for crucial Patriot air defence systems, precision artillery rounds, and missiles used by the Ukrainian air force on American-made F-16 jets, according to Pentagon officials.
A review of the US stockpiles had been reportedly under way for months but it was not immediately clear how military support for other countries would be affected.
“The strength of the United States armed forces remains unquestioned — just ask Iran.”
“It’s a nightmare if you get promised something, and you already planned for where you put these things, or which units receive what, and then it’s delayed, and then it doesn’t happen,” Miron said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reaffirmed that he considers the Russian and Ukrainian people ‘to be one people’ (Photo: Sergei Karpukhin/Sputnik/Reuters)
The decision comes as Ukraine enters a deadly new phase in the war, with Russia launching what Ukraine described as its largest air assault since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022 at the weekend, involving 477 drones and decoys as well as 60 missiles. Last month, Russia launched a record 5,337 Shahed-type drones at Ukraine.
Then last week Vladimir Putin declared that “all of Ukraine is ours”, in what appears to have been a shift in his war aims, which, following his initial failure to conquer Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine at the start of his 2022 invasion, reframed his priorities, annexing the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called for a boost in Western military support (Photo: Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP)
Russian state media has also claimed that its forces have seized their first village in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an area Ukraine has never previously had to defend against Russian soldiers during the war. Ukrainian officials have denied the claim, but the President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has said Russia has deployed sabotage units into border villages.
The US suspension comes as Ukraine faces a shortage of air defence munitions, which are dwindling as Russia steps up its air attacks.
The move to pause certain weapons shipments to Ukraine follows Zelensky’s urgent calls to Western allies to boost air defence support, although as Dr Miron said, this is inevitably dependent on the political climates of each country.
Patriot air defence systems have been critical for protecting Ukrainian cities from Russian attacks (Photo: Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)Kyiv’s largest donor remains unpredictable
But Donald Trump’s return to power has increased the uncertainty around the future of US assistance to Kyiv. A tense Oval Office confrontation with Zelensky in March resulted in a temporary halt of all military shipments to Ukraine, but aid resumed about a week later after the two leaders smoothed over their differences.
Following their tense exchange in the Oval Office in February, Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump have somewhat managed to smooth their differences (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
At last week’s Nato summit in The Hague, Trump told a Ukrainian journalist that he would look for ways to deliver more Patriot missiles to Ukraine.
In April, Europe surpassed the US for the first time in total military aid to Ukraine, contributing €72 billion (about £62.64 billion) compared with the US’s 65 billion Euros (£55.8 billion), according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which monitors wartime aid.
“I’ve seen this several times with Trump, where he kind of gets angry publicly with, say, Zelensky, but does exactly the opposite of what one would expect, or he gets angry with Putin, but does something that actually benefits Putin, and I think this is something that we have to keep in mind,” she said.
The US inventory stockpiles “are not critically low,” as the country has successfully replenished its supplies, particularly for the key Patriot air defence systems, through buy-back programmes and redirecting shipments originally intended for export customers, rather than drawing from its own reserves, he said.
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Read More“That being said, the argument about scarcity is not necessarily invalid, it merely reflects the fact that the requirement for Patriot, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, is growing significantly,” he said. “As such, the scarcity is relative and not absolute, and driven by increases on the demand rather than the supply side.”
The US decision could also be way to force European countries to provide more assistance to Ukraine, “because this is not just about Ukraine” but “it is about a broader issue between the United States and the Europeans, especially as far as Ukraine and then Israel are concerned,” said Dr Miron.
Trump has repeatedly called on European allies to play a bigger role in supporting Ukraine, as well as boost their own defences.
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