A leading Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, fresh off a trip to Ukraine, charged Monday that President Donald Trump’s halt of U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv is “weakening” its position in talks with Russia to end the three-year-long war.
“When you negotiate the end of a conflict, you want to be negotiating from a position of strength,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., told reporters after returning from a weekend trip to Ukraine. “What the administration did, cutting off weapons to Ukraine and cutting off intelligence, is the exact opposite of that.”
Kelly, the ranking member of the Armed Services Airland Subcommittee, is the first lawmaker to visit Ukraine since Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clashed at the White House late last month, a shocking public spat that stalled completion of a key rare earth minerals deal.
In the aftermath, the Trump administration has continued to ramp up pressure on Ukraine, pausing the continued provision of defense equipment and intelligence with Kyiv ahead of planned peace talks between high-level U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia this week.
Days into the arms and intelligence-sharing suspension, Kelly said the impact is already being felt on the ground in Ukraine. He said he received a rundown of the U.S.-built weapons the nation’s armed forces are poised to run out of and when, though he declined to provide examples.
And while he acknowledged European nations and private companies may attempt to step in to provide certain kinds of battlefield information and insights to Kyiv, Kelly said “there will be a gap” left over.
For example, Kelly said Ukrainian fighter pilots, trained by U.S. officials to fly F-16s, are “blinded to some of the threats” because of the information loss.
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled Monday to Saudi Arabia to hold talks with his Ukrainian counterparts, national media reports showed he told reporters that as part of any peace deal, Ukraine would have to cede territory Russia has seized since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea.
Upon hearing the news, Kelly said “giving up stuff before the negotiation starts” is not “a good plan.”
Trump last week threatened to impose “large scale” tariffs on Russia until Moscow reaches a ceasefire deal and broader agreement to end its war with Ukraine.
The warning was Trump’s first hint at a potential repudiation of Russia after spending the opening weeks of his second term pivoting toward Russian President Vladimir Putin while distancing himself from Europe and Ukraine.
On the Hill, Democrats have signaled their disapproval of the Trump administration’s posture toward Ukraine and treatment of Zelenskyy, most recently by attempting to advance resolutions on the Senate floor — all of which were dismissed by Republicans — that would have condemned Russian war crimes, declared Russia started the conflict with Kyiv and more.
Kelly said he believes Russia is seeking to end the war with Ukraine in a way that will allow Moscow to take the time to again build up its defense industrial base and “get to a position where sometime in the future, there will be some pretext there for going after another one of their neighbors.”
“I was in the Baltic countries about a year ago, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, they’re getting ready. They all think they’re next. Poland thinks they’re next as well,” he said. “One of them is wrong, but somebody could be next.”
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