{"id":311452,"date":"2025-07-03T05:54:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T05:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=311452"},"modified":"2025-07-04T06:31:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T06:31:02","slug":"us-halts-weapons-shipments-to-ukraine-over-fears-stockpiles-are-too-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=311452","title":{"rendered":"US halts weapons shipments to Ukraine over fears stockpiles are too low"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Sabbagh \u2013 The Guardian July 2, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Pentagon has halted shipments of critical US Patriot air defence systems and other precision weapons to Ukraine<\/a> after concern that US stockpiles are running too low, prompting alarm in Kyiv.<\/p>\n

A decision was quietly taken last month by the Pentagon\u2019s policy chief, Elbridge Colby. Kyiv said halting weapons shipments would only encourage Russian aggression, but the White House said the halt had been made \u201cto put America\u2019s interests first following a DoD [Department of Defense] review\u201d.<\/p>\n

Colby\u2019s review concluded in June but the decision only emerged overnight after Washington confirmed reports of the change in policy. The White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said: \u201cThe strength of the United States armed forces remains unquestioned \u2013 just ask Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine has been coming under increased missile and drone attack from Russia, which have caused a higher level of civilian casualties, and is desperate to secure additional Patriot and other air defence systems to protect its cities.<\/p>\n

The US decision also involves Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, GMLRS missiles used by Himars rocket artillery, Stinger portable air defence systems and 155mm artillery shells originally promised by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Russia launched 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles into Ukraine on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the biggest single nightly air raid since the start of the war, according to Ukraine\u2019s air force<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier last month, 28 civilians were reported killed and more than 100 injured in Kyiv after a nine-hour missile and drone attack. Nato sources said last week that it was Russia\u2019s third largest combined attack since the start of the war.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry said it had summoned the US embassy\u2019s charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires, John Ginkel, to a meeting with the deputy foreign minister, Mariana Betsa, to discuss US military assistance and Russia\u2019s continuing campaign of airstrikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ukrainian side emphasised that any delay or procrastination in supporting Ukraine\u2019s defence capabilities will only encourage the aggressor to continue the war and terror, rather than seek peace,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n

At the end of last week\u2019s Nato summit, Donald Trump hinted that supplies of Patriot missile interceptors were running down because some had been supplied to Israel, though he suggested he would like to help Kyiv.<\/p>\n

After a meeting with Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the US president acknowledged that Ukraine did \u201cwant to have the anti-missile systems, as they call the Patriots, and we\u2019re going to see if we can make some available\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Trump added: \u201cThey\u2019re very hard to get. We need them. We were supplying them to Israel,\u201d implying that supporting Israel in its war with Iran \u2013 a priority for the Republican administration \u2013 had set back its willingness to help Kyiv.<\/p>\n

Nato officials said last week that Russia was producing \u201cquite a number\u201d of ballistic missiles itself and acquiring some from North Korea. Ukraine\u2019s military intelligence briefed in June that Moscow was producing 60 to 70 ballistic Iskander-Ms and 10 to 15 hypersonic Kinzhals a month.<\/p>\n

Air defence interceptors take longer to produce than ballistic missiles, and efforts have been made to increase production of those used by Patriot batteries since the start of the Ukraine war. Russia, meanwhile, has boosted missile and drone production in an effort to exhaust Kyiv\u2019s air defences.<\/p>\n

The weapons that were due to be sent are part of the $66bn worth of weapons and military aid approved by Congress under the Biden administration since February 2022. Though no new spending has been authorised under Trump, the previous military aid packages have mostly continued, aside from a short pause in March.<\/p>\n

European allies of Ukraine have sought to plug some of the gaps but western militaries have long acknowledged that US weapons represent \u201cthe cream\u201d of the munitions available, and some are deemed critical for Kyiv\u2019s war effort.<\/p>\n

Ukraine is now largely fighting a defensive war against Russia while Trump tries to broker a ceasefire between the two countries. Moscow believes it is gradually winning the war, and peace talks have ground to halt.<\/p>\n

British sources said the US decision did not affect its own supplies to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some weapons shipments have been suspended, including critical US Patriot air defence systems, as a White House spokesperson says the Trump administration puts \u201cAmerica\u2019s interests first”. After Israel’s, of course<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":166948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,37,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311452"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311464,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311452\/revisions\/311464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/166948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}