by A day after announcing that the United States would resume delivering ammunition to assist Ukraine repel Russia’s multi-year invasion, President Trump on Tuesday vented weeks of exasperation with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin over what he called pointless peace gestures.
After months of failing to bring peace to a situation he once claimed he could settle in a day, Mr. Trump’s comments were his sharpest against Mr. Putin since he was first elected president in 2016. They also marked a sudden shift in his public stance toward the Russian leader.
At a White House cabinet meeting, Mr. Trump told reporters, “If you want to know the truth, we get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin.” He is always so kind to us, yet it is ultimately pointless.
The president’s decision to resume sending some air defense interceptors, precision-guided bombs, and missiles to Ukraine after their delivery was halted last month seemed to be motivated by his dissatisfaction with his Russian counterpart as well as more recent, positive interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Administration officials at the time said that the halt was required to determine whether the Pentagon’s weapons stocks were getting too low. The pause’s director has not been identified by officials.
The first tranche of halted weaponry, which was delayed in Poland, is not expected to reach Ukraine anytime soon. However, the decision to unleash the bombs was criticized in Ukraine, which experienced a significant Russian airstrike on Kyiv and other places late last week, just after Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin spoke on the phone.
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