Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that the U.S. has not stopped military aid to Ukraine even though new American Secretary of State Marco Rubion announced he’s pausing foreign aid for 90 days.
Zelenskyy did not clarify whether humanitarian aid had been paused.
Ukraine relies on the U.S. for 40 percent of its military needs. “I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God,” he said at a press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
The two leaders met in Kyiv Saturday to discuss the energy needs of Moldova’s Russian-occupied Transnistria region, where natural gas supplies were halted early this month by Ukraine’s decision to stop Russian gas transit.
Ukraine has said it can offer coal to the Transnistrian authorities to make up for the shortfall.
The future of U.S. aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as Donald Trump begins his second term in office. In a startling interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity earlier this week he blamed Zelensky for the war, even though it was Russia that invaded Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he could stop the war in 24 hours and insisted that it wouldn’t have occurred to begin with had he been president when Russia invaded. Trump was president, however, when fighting broke out along the border between Kyiv’s forces and separatists aligned with Moscow. Trump did nothing to stop that fighting before Russian President Vladimir Putin sent in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
Trump Thursday told Fox News that Zelenskyy should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict. A day earlier, Trump also threatened to impose stiff tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy insisted Saturday that he has enjoyed “good meetings and conversations with President Trump,” and that he believed the U.S. leader would succeed in his desire to end the war.
“This can only be done with Ukraine, and otherwise it simply will not work because Russia does not want to end the war, and Ukraine does,” Zelenskyy said.
