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Kremlin welcomes US decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine, calls for lifting of sanctions

Pjotr Sauer is a Russian affairs reporter for the Guardian

The Kremlin on Tuesday welcomed the US pause in military aid to Ukraine, claiming it could push Kyiv to the negotiating table.

“If this is true, then it is a decision that could genuinely push the Kyiv regime towards a peace process,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists. “This would probably be the best contribution to the cause of peace,” he added.

Peskov said he expected European countries to try to “compensate” for the shortfall in US ammunition supplies. “But, of course, the main volume has still been coming from the US, through US channels,” he said.

Moscow also welcomed media reports that the US is considering a plan for possible sanctions relief for Russia.

“Our position on sanctions is well known – we consider them illegal,” Peskov said. “Of course, if we’re talking about normalising bilateral relations, they need to be freed from this negative burden of so-called sanctions.”

Reuters reported on Monday that the US was drawing up a plan to potentially ease sanctions on Russia as president Donald Trump seeks to restore ties with Moscow and end the war in Ukraine.

Poland's foreign ministry: US decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine taken without consulting or informing allies

Poland’s foreign ministry has said that the decision by the Trump administration to suspend US military aid to Ukraine was taken without consultation with allies.

Reuters reports that in a statement spokesperson Paweł Wroński said “This is a very important decision, and the situation is very serious. 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.”

The Kremlin has said that if the US is really suspending military aid to Ukraine, that could force Kyiv into peace negotiations.

During his regular daily briefing, Tass reports Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also said that any normalising of relations between Russia and the US would require economic sanctions to be lifted, and that the greatest contribution to peace the US could make would be to stop sponsoring Ukraine.

Czech PM Fiala: 'We cannot allow Russia’s aggressive policy to succeed'

The Czech Republic’s prime minister Petr Fiala has called for a “fundamental shift” in European policy in reaction to Donald Trump’s decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine.

In a post to social media, he said:

President Trump’s decision highlights the urgent need for a fundamental shift in Europe’s current policy.

We must strengthen our economic and military capabilities and take full responsibility for our own security. This requires increased investment in defence. Ensuring our security also means intensifying our support for Ukraine. We cannot allow Russia’s aggressive policy, which threatens us all, to succeed.

The era of relying on others to address fundamental international challenges on our behalf is over. Now is the time for Europe to move decisively from words to action.

Von der Leyen: EU plans to strengthen defence spending could cost €800bn

New EU plans to strengthen Europe’s defence industry and increase military capabilities could mobilise close to €800bn ($841.4bn), EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday in Brussels.

The EU will propose to give member states more fiscal space for defence investments, as well as €150bn euros in loans for those investments, and will aim to mobilise private capital as well, Reuters reports von der Leyen said

European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen has been making a statement about European defence spending in Brussels, in which she has signalled that Europe is ready to massively increase defence spending.

More details soon …

Hungary’s government has said that foreign minister Péter Szijjártó is to meet US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Washington later today.

Last week Kaja Kallas, the European Commission’s high representative for foreign affairs visited the US capital, but “scheduling issues” prevented her expected meeting with Rubio.

At the time an EU diplomat commented to Politico that it “seems that the Trump administration doesn’t miss a chance to show that for them the EU is not a player.”

The UK government has reiterated it is committing to supporting Ukraine after the Donald Trump administration suspended US military aid.

In a statement, Downing Street said:

We remain absolutely committed to securing a lasting peace in Ukraine and are engaging with key allies in support of this effort. It is the right thing to do, and is in our interest to do so.

We have bolstered Ukrainian military capabilities through our commitment to provide Ukraine with £3bn-a-year in military aid for as long as it takes and through a £2.26bn loan using sanctioned Russian assets.

In addition, we’ve set up a partnership with Ukraine that allows them to use £1.6bn of UK Export Finance to buy 5,000 air defence missiles manufactured in Belfast, putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position for peace.

Hungary’s government has offered support to the Donald Trump administration’s decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine as the country defends itself against Russia’s invasion and illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory.

A spokesperson for Viktor Orbán’s government said “The US president and the Hungarian government share the same stance: instead of continuing weapons shipments and the war, a ceasefire and peace talks are needed as soon as possible.”

Senior Ukrainian lawmaker compares suspension of US military aid with 1938 appeasement of Hitler

Reuters is now carrying a fuller quote from Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of Ukraine’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, who told the news agency that the Trump administration move to suspend military aid to Ukraine resembled the appeasement of Adolf Hitler with the Munich agreement of 1938.

The senior Ukrainian lawmaker said:

To stop aid now means to help Putin. On the surface, this looks really bad. It looks like [Donald Trump] is pushing us towards capitulation, (accepting) Russia’s demands. The main thing is that this a psychological blow, a political blow upon Ukraine, it doesn’t help our spirit.

This is worse than Munich, because at least there they didn’t try to paint Czechoslovakia as the aggressor, but here they try to accuse the victim of aggression – it is extremely dangerous.

On 30 September 1938, Germany, Britain, France and Italy reached a settlement that permitted Nazi Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland in what was then western Czechoslovakia.

UK minister: diplomacy cannot be done 'over the airwaves'

A minister in the UK government has said that diplomacy cannot be done “over the airwaves” and that he did not think the UK government could act as an honest broker if it was providing a running commentary on every “twist and turn”.

He added that US military spending was a matter for the US government.

PA Media quotes Housing minister Alex Norris, speaking in the UK on Times Radio, saying:

We’re absolutely committed to securing a lasting peace in Ukraine. We’re engaging with our allies in support of that goal.

We’ve made significant commitments to Ukraine, that’s what we’ll continue to do, all in pursuit of a lasting peace, which will be achieved through putting Ukraine in a strong position.

US military spending is a decision for the United States. All of us, I think, are committed to securing that lasting peace.

We’re honest brokers in this process, we’re bringing together partners to get what we think is the goal that certainly we want as the UK, but I think we want globally as well. I don’t think we can be that honest broker if we provide a running commentary on every twist and turn. You know, I don’t think diplomacy can be done over the airwaves, so I’ve no intention of doing that.

Asked about how Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy should react to the apparent pressure being put on him to apologise to US president Donald Trump in public, Norris said “I don’t think it’s for me to try and police [Zelenskyy’s] words or tell him what you ought to say.”

Amid the diplomatic flurry of the last few days, the war continues. Ukraine’s air force said on Tuesday it shot down 65 out of 99 drones launched by Russia overnight. Energy firm DTEK said on Tuesday morning it had restored supplies to 7,000 families in the Odesa region after Russian forces damaged an energy facility there on Monday.

France: pause in US military aid makes peace for Ukraine 'more distant'

A minister in the French government has said that the US decision to pause military aid to Ukraine makes peace “more distant”.

Benjamin Haddad, the junior minister for Europe, is quoted by Reuters saying “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”. Haddad was speaking to France 2.

In more European reaction to the decision from the Trump administration, Poland’s deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk has described the move as “bad news”, while Reuters reports that the Ukrainian parliamentary foreign affairs committee chair has told it that it looks like Donald Trump is pushing Ukraine towards capitulation.

The suspension affects deliveries of ammunition, vehicles, and other equipment including shipments agreed to when Joe Biden was president.

Opening summary

Earlier on Monday Trump had expressed fresh outrage at Zelenskyy for saying that the end of the war could be “very, very far away”.

In a post to social media on Monday, the US president posted a link to an Associated Press story outlining Zelenskyy’s comments and said: “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US. Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”

In other developments:

• Russian forces are repeatedly trying to seize a foothold across Ukraine’s Dnipro River, dispatching troops on high-casualty missions to gain territory for future peace negotiations, according to the Ukrainian governor of Kherson region. Oleksandr Prokudin said Russian forces were trying to cross in four locations to justify their claim to the whole oblast, one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow says it wants to incorporate

• US vice-president JD Vance said that the best way to protect Ukraine from another Russian invasion is to guarantee the US has a financial interest in Ukraine’s future. “If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said in the interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity which aired Monday night

• Tensions have surfaced between France and the UK over whether $350bn of frozen Russian assets can be seized and then offered to the US to buy defence equipment, binding America closer to the defence of Europe

• Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says his government will consider any proposal to send troops to Ukraine as part of a multinational peacekeeping force, as Europe considers a “coalition of the willing” to enforce any peace deal

• On Monday a car rammed into crowds in the centre of the German city of Mannheim, killing two people and injuring several others, in what police described as a deliberate attack

• Pope Francis, who has been in hospital with pneumonia for more than two weeks, suffered two episodes of “acute respiratory failure” on Monday, the Vatican said. The pontiff, 88, had returned to a stable condition during the weekend after a breathing crisis that caused him to vomit on Friday

It is Martin Belam with you today. You can reach me at [email protected].