A former U.S. official offered a bizarre explanation as to why the Trump administration has yet to sign off on a deal with Ukraine on a “major drone production agreement” that the two nations have actively discussed since at least last September, a holdup that may very well be “kneecapping the U.S. military,” The Hill reported Sunday.
Last August, President Donald Trump was hammered by two of his own officials for making “one of the biggest tactical miscalculations” of his presidency – turning down an offer from Ukraine to accept a package of interceptor drones, a package that could have significantly helped the United States combat Iran’s drones, which posed a “bigger problem than anticipated” to Trump’s war effort.
And last September, Ukraine reportedly offered to enter into an agreement with the Trump administration to partner on producing a counter-drone defense system. However, the Trump administration had responded with “hesitancy,” The Hill reported, “slowing the U.S. military down in an area where it’s already trying to play catch-up.”
“Even with senior Pentagon officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll lauding Kyiv’s drone abilities, the Trump administration is still biding its time on taking full advantage of the Ukrainian capabilities, a delay that experts say is potentially kneecapping the U.S. military,” The Hill’s report reads.
“One former official who spoke to The Hill on the condition of anonymity had a more blunt assessment, calling the holdup ‘lethargy’ on the part of the Trump administration and ‘a certain amount of hostility towards Ukraine coming from the very top.’”
Phillips O’Brein, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, warned that not only was the Trump administration’s refusal to close a deal jeopardizing the U.S. military’s effectiveness, but that it was actively putting U.S. servicemembers at risk.
“The US is putting its own troops in danger by not working as closely as possible with the Ukrainians on drone development,” O’Brein wrote recently in a social media post on X. “To stay close to Putin, Trump is showing once again how little he cares about US soldiers.”
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