US president says he will supply Kyiv with billions of dollars of military equipment paid for by European allies
Donald Trump said he has sealed an agreement with Nato allies that will lead to large-scale arms deliveries to Ukraine, including Patriot missiles, and warned Russia that it will face severe sanctions if Moscow does not make peace within 50 days.
After a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, Trump said they had agreed “a very big deal”, in which “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment is going to be purchased from the United States, going to Nato … And that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Speaking in the White House alongside a clearly delighted Rutte, the US president said the arms deliveries would be comprehensive and would include the Patriot missile batteries that Ukraine desperately needs for its air defences against a daily Russian aerial onslaught.
“It’s everything: it’s Patriots. It’s all of them. It’s a full complement, with the batteries,” Trump said.
He did not go into any more detail, but made clear the weapons would be entirely paid for by Washington’s European allies, and that initial missile deliveries would come “within days” from European stocks, on the understanding they would be replenished with US supplies.
At a White House lunch with religious leaders later in the day, Trump said the deal was “fully approved, fully done”.
“We’ll send them a lot of weapons of all kinds and they’re going to deliver those weapons immediately … and they’re going to pay,” he said.
At his meeting with Trump, Rutte said there was a significant number of Nato allies – including Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada – ready to rearm Ukraine as part of the deal.
“They all want to be part of this. And this is only the first wave. There will be more,” he said.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said last week that Berlin was ready to acquire additional Patriot systems.
