President Trump’s decision to pause the delivery of some air defense interceptors and precision-guided munitions to Ukraine is part of a broader effort.
The Trump administration’s decision to pause the delivery of some air defense interceptors and precision-guided munitions to Ukraine is part of a broader global review of where the Pentagon is sending such weapons, the Defense Department said on Wednesday.
Pentagon officials said on Tuesday that the administration was withholding Patriot air defense systems, precision artillery rounds and missiles that the Ukrainian Air Force fires from American-made F-16 jets, citing concerns that U.S. weapons stocks were dwindling.
On Wednesday, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, explained that the review extends to all countries the United States sends weapons, not just Ukraine, but he declined to say whether the military had paused the delivery of weapons to other countries.
“What we’ve done here at the Department of Defense is create a framework to analyze what munitions we’re sending where to help the president and secretary of defense make decisions,” Mr. Parnell said at his first news conference in nearly four months.
“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world,” Mr. Parnell said. “We have to look out for America and defending our homeland and our troops around the world.”
Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that President Trump could ultimately order all or some of the paused munitions to be sent to Ukraine, depending on the results of the department’s review.
American bombs, missiles and artillery shells have been critical in Ukraine’s efforts to hold off increasingly intense attacks from Russia, at a particularly perilous moment in the three years and four months since Russia’s army invaded.
Only last week, after meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in The Hague, Mr. Trump said he was open to selling more weapons to Ukraine. But by that time, the Pentagon was already planning the pause.
Concerns about depleting the stockpile of American weapons are not new, or limited to the Trump administration. At the end of the Biden administration, senior officials expressed concerns that U.S. and European arms manufacturers were not keeping up with demand — for sophisticated weapons as well as basics like artillery.
