The Kremlin said on Tuesday that pausing US military aid to Ukraine would be the best contribution to the cause of peace, but cautioned that Russia needed to clarify the details of the move by US president Donald Trump.
Mr Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine following his clash with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, a White House official said, deepening the fissure that has opened between the one-time allies.
Mr Trump, who spoke to Russian president Vladimir Putin on February 12th and says he wants to be remembered as a “peace maker”, has upended US policy on the war in Ukraine which he says risks igniting world war three. Mr Trump also said Kyiv has no cards left to play.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cautious on reports of a pause in US aid and said the details needed to be seen.
“If this is true, then this is a decision that can really encourage the Kyiv regime to [come to] the peace process,” Mr Peskov said.
“It is obvious that the United States has been the main supplier of this war so far. If the United States stops being [an arms supplier] or suspends these supplies, it will probably be the best contribution to the cause of peace.”
Mr Peskov said that Russia welcomed Mr Trump’s statements about his wish for peace in Ukraine.
“We hear his statement about his desire to bring peace to Ukraine, and this is welcome. We see certain things and receive certain information about the proposed actions in this direction. This is also welcome. But we will continue to see how the situation develops in reality,” Mr Peskov said.
[ Explainer: What military aid was the US giving Ukraine?Opens in new window ]
Ukraine’s former minister for defence Andriy Zagorodnyuk said the White House was trying to “bully” Mr Zelenskiy into accepting a bad peace deal on Moscow’s brutal terms. If Kyiv did not agree, US military aid would be halted permanently, he predicted.
“I think this is extremely wrong on all different levels,” Mr Zagorodnyuk said. He added: “Also it will not work with Ukraine. Ukraine will never bend to bullies, and to bullying. It’s as simple as that.”
Mr Trump’s decision to halt military aid to Ukraine is a “very serious development,” Taoiseach Micheál Martin said.
Although a “serious setback,” the Taoiseach said EU leaders, who will meet later this week, will do everything they can to continue engagement with the US government to identify a path forward that protects Ukrainian sovereignty and its territorial integrity.
“It will not be easy,” Mr Martin said, speaking outside Government Buildings on Tuesday morning, adding that Europe is conscious that other countries across the Continent fear “Russian aggression and Russian ambition”.
“Those countries see this as an existential threat to their sovereignty and the EU is very conscious of that, and that it was is motivating the EU in its continued strong support of Ukraine,” he said.
Tánaiste Simon Harris, meanwhile, described it as a “very worrying development”, adding that “unilaterally and abruptly” disrupting support to Ukraine while trying to find a process towards peace “would have very significant consequences”.
The UK government said it remains “absolutely committed” to peace in Ukraine and is “engaging with key allies” on the issue.
“We have bolstered Ukrainian military capabilities through our commitment to provide Ukraine with £3 billion a year in military aid for as long as it takes and through a £2.26 billion loan using sanctioned Russian assets,” a spokeswoman said.
“In addition, we’ve set up a partnership with Ukraine that allows them to use £1.6 billion of UK export finance to buy 5,000 air defence missiles manufactured in Belfast, putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position for peace.”
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said Keir Starmer remains “laser-focused” on Ukraine and will not be “derailed” by announcements from the White House.
Elsewhere, a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson said Mr Trump made the decision to pause aid to Ukraine without consulting with allies, adding that the situation was very serious.
“This is a very important decision, and the situation is very serious,” Pawel Wronski told reporters. “This sentence may sound banal, but it has great political significance – it [the decision] was made without any information, or consultation, neither with Nato allies, nor with the Ramstein group, which is involved in supporting Ukraine in its fight.”
French junior minister for Europe Benjamin Haddad said the US decision strengthens Russia’s position and makes peace more difficult to obtain.
“Fundamentally, if you want peace, does a decision to suspend arms to Ukraine reinforce peace or does it make it more distant? It makes it more distant, because it only strengthens the hand of the aggressor on the ground, which is Russia,” Mr Haddad said.
Mr Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.
Russia currently controls just under a fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,000sq km of Ukraine while Ukraine controls about 450sq km of Russia, according to open source maps of the war and Russian estimates. – Reuters/Wires
