Trump’s weapon’s pledge means a major step forward for Ukraine

For the first time after returning to the White House, Donald Trump pledged to make new weapons available to Ukraine.

According to the new transaction, the US will sell weapons to NATO members, who will then supply them to Kiev when fighting the Russian invasion.

The president did not give too much specifics that he said it was “billions of dollars” of military equipment. But when asked if they include the air defense battery and the interceptor missile, he replied: “That’s all.”

Trump said there are 17 patriots and most of the European countries, Trump said.

For Ukraine, a huge country that currently operates a handful of batteries – perhaps about eight – a major step forward, which gives Kiev the opportunity to expand protection against Russian ballistic and cruise missiles.

Sitting next to the President, NATO Secretary General, Mark Rute, hinted at a larger package.

“It’s wider than the patriots,” he said.

“It will mean that Ukraine can get its hands on a truly large -scale military equipment, both for air defense and missiles, ammunition …”

This is a significant moment.

Less than two weeks ago, it was horrified in Kiev that the Pentagon dismissed military supplies to Ukraine, including “patriots”.

Making the decision -related decisions remains unclear, but on Monday, Trump tried to make light again when he said it was done in the knowledge that this deal would be impressed.

“We were sure that this would happen, so we paused,” the president said.

Now, thanks to some winding talks, many of them involving Rute, weapons can continue to flow without collecting Washington tab.

“We’re for a lot of money,” said the President, “and we just don’t want to do it.”

The deal is a personal triumph for rute, “Trump’s whisper” that counted and called on the president, partly helping to secure NATO’s commitment to a whole member spent 5% GDP on defense.

When they were sitting near the Oval office, Rute continued to flatter Trump, calling the last deal “really big” and saying that “quite logically” European NATO members pay for it.

A number of countries, he said, were lined up, including the UK, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.

“And that’s just the first wave,” he said. “There will be more.”

In a separate and rather characteristic development, Trump threatened Moscow with a new term: if Vladimir Putin does not agree to cease fire in the next 50 days, Russia and his trading partners will suffer from 100% secondary tariffs.

This is a new approach that Kyiv and Congress members have been calling for some time: Russia’s pressure, focusing on countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas like China and India.

Trump’s move comes when the US Senate continues to work on a bill that would impose much tougher sanctions.

The President said the Senate bill, which provides for 500% of the secondary tariffs, could be “very good”, but added that it was “pointless after a while because it doesn’t matter at some point.”

As always, the exact details of the president’s threat remain several vague.

But whatever it was in the coming weeks and months, Monday felt something turning. The US president finally departs from his affected faith in Vladimir Putin, giving the Russian leader the time to come to the dining talks.

This is definitely not a return to Joe Biden’s obligations to support Ukraine “as long as it takes”, but this is not quite a neutral position that angered Ukraine and its Western allies.

It seems that Trump guaranteed that all the important American weapon pipeline in Ukraine will still remain open-at the condition that others pay for it.

But 50 days will feel a very long Ukrainian who are in the receiving end of the drone and missile bombing.

Nothing that Trump did it seem to be stopping it immediately.