The Trump administration has not approved the transfer of interceptor missiles to Ukraine that are needed to protect the country from Russian missile and drone attacks, officials said Monday, a delay that comes as President Donald Trump has embraced Russia and slammed Ukraine in recent weeks.
At least some of the transfers of Patriot interceptor missiles are from countries friendly to Ukraine that require Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to approve the handoff, according to a U.S. official and three additional people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic exchanges. The United States retains control because the weapons are made by it and are shipped abroad under the agreement that transfers to other countries require U.S. sign-off.
A Ukrainian official told The Washington Post last week that “only a couple” of interceptor missiles remain in Ukraine’s stockpile.
Officials said Hegseth has not formally rejected the transfers but also has not completed the required steps to approve them. Hegseth has continued to approve some U.S. assistance to Ukraine, they said.
Trump has repeatedly blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in recent days as relations between the two leaders have deteriorated in ways that recall the low point, early in Trump’s second term, when he ejected the Ukrainian leader from the White House. Relations had bounced back since then and were positive as recently as last month, when the two men met in New York.
Trump, however, increasingly appears to have settled on Zelensky as a person to blame for his struggles with high energy prices and worsening political prospects ahead of the midterm elections. Ukraine has been striking Russian oil refineries for months, one of its main strategies for imposing pressure on the Kremlin.
Now Trump and Zelensky are fighting publicly at the same time that the administration has taken steps to withhold assistance, moves that Ukrainian officials say are costing lives by making it harder to defend against attack.
“Once again, there was a Russian ballistic missile attack in several waves overnight, and once again, there was no warning from our partners,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Monday. He said Russia launched 16 ballistic missiles against Ukraine.
“We have welcomed literally EVERY attempt by our partners to end this war with dignity,” he wrote. “It is very important to call things by their proper names. We must call the aggressor an aggressor and help Ukraine protect lives. When deliveries of missiles for Ukraine’s air defense are blocked, while Russia receives sanctions relief or delays, this is, unfortunately, a denial of reality on the part of our partners.”
Trump has repeatedly criticized the Ukrainian leader, suggesting he should be replaced.
“Zelensky is not helping matters much. I think he doesn’t want to stop it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “I think it’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.”
The comments were sure to inflame Kyiv, which has been suffering from years of war and where public sentiment widely favors ending the war in a manner that doesn’t lead to defeat.
Since the summer, Ukraine has been running critically low on Patriot missiles, leaving its population exposed to Russia’s near-daily ballistic attacks. Russia aims to make Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities unlivable by winter, targeting power plants, substations and other infrastructure critical for heating and water supplies. Ballistic missiles — high-powered, fast-moving and difficult to defend against without high-tech assistance — are a key weapon in that effort.
The U.S. war in Iran has put enormous pressure on the world’s stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles, and Ukraine has begun to face critical shortages each month. The U.S. tends to send shipments of the interceptors in small batches, often a few a time, as they are produced.
Ukraine and its partners also have been searching the world for other stockpiles, pushing countries to offer up whatever interceptors they can spare.
The Kyiv Independent first reported that the Pentagon hadn’t signed off on the foreign transfers of interceptors to Ukraine.
At the same time, Ukraine has experienced repeated disruptions to its early-warning systems, which rely on U.S. intelligence, from ballistic missiles.
Asked whether the U.S. is still sharing intelligence with Ukraine, Trump said Monday that “we share intelligence. We share a lot. We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. You know what, we’ve given a lot to Ukraine. They’ve given nothing to us.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted Monday that there has “been no pause” in U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
“What we want to be focused on is bringing an end to this war. That’s what he should be focused on,” he said of Zelensky, answering questions from reporters in Uzbekistan, where he is on a visit.
Ukraine relies on U.S. intelligence to detect missile attacks. When asked about Ukrainian claims that there were no early warnings for recent attacks, Rubio said a “software problem” occurred “a couple of nights ago” that the U.S. European Command was looking into.
Relations between Trump and Zelensky have been up and down for years. But they took a major downturn this month during talks in Miami between representatives of the two governments, when Ukrainian officials rejected White House efforts to get them to stop hitting Russian energy targets, including diesel refineries, said U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
While that meeting was underway, Trump announced that the U.S. has struck a deal with the Kremlin that lifted U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel exports. Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to sell more than a million tons of diesel to the “American and Global Marketplace,” Trump wrote.
Oil analysts expressed doubt that the deal would make a meaningful impact on U.S. diesel prices. They noted that while the Ukrainian strikes have helped drive up the global price of diesel, the bigger factor behind the price hikes has been the U.S. war with Iran and disruptions to global oil supplies caused by Iran’s efforts to block the Strait of Hormuz.
The deal, however, has given Trump a direct stake in keeping Ukraine from hitting the Russian refineries, inflaming tensions between Kyiv and Washington and, in effect, partly aligning the Trump administration with Putin.
Zelensky’s public remarks that Trump is choosing the other side and that the White House is not on the right “side of history” have exacerbated tensions, U.S. officials said.
On Monday, Zelensky spoke to U.S. senators on a group call in which he discussed challenges Kyiv is facing amid the sharp downturn in relations with Trump.
Several prominent Republicans have grown increasingly critical of Trump’s recent concessions to Russia, especially his Friday decision to waive sanctions established under a bipartisan bill passed in honor of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, a firm GOP supporter of Ukraine.
Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), the former Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, joined members of both parties last week in decrying Trump’s diesel deal.
“The recent lifting of sanctions on Russian oil will only fuel the Kremlin’s violence and destruction,” McCaul said in a letter to the White House co-signed by 20 House colleagues.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued an unusually direct statement Sunday urging Trump to affirm support for Ukraine after the senator met with Zelensky in Kyiv.
Zelensky would end the attacks on Russian refineries if Russia stopped attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, Wicker wrote. “President Trump can lower prices at the pump today by simply agreeing to this deal!” he said. “MR. PRESIDENT, PLEASE TAKE THIS WIN!”
Ebel reported from Kyiv. Noah Robertson and Tara Copp in Washington and Susannah George in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, contributed to this report.
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