Cuts to US aid for Ukraine in the Trump administration’s forthcoming defence budget will lead to more casualties for Kyiv, a top Kyiv MP is warning.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said military aid to Ukraine would be reduced – the latest sign of Washington’s waning support for Kyiv’s war effort.
But Oleksandr Merezhko, head of Ukraine’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said cuts would play into Russia’s hands.
“Such a reduction will lead to more casualties on the Ukrainian side, including casualties among [the] civilian population,” he told Newsweek.
And he warned: “Anyone in the US who is acting in support of the reduction of the military aid to Ukraine becomes morally responsible for the increased casualties among civilians.”
A massive Russian overnight drone strike killed three people and injured more than 60 others in the eastern city of Kharkiv.
Mr Hegseth said the Trump administration would push for a “negotiated peaceful settlement” to the conflict despite Russia’s having launched some of its largest aerial attacks of the war so far in the past week.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says the US has diverted 20,000 anti-drone missiles meant for his country to US forces in the Middle East.
