Ukraine-Russia latest news: Trump ‘flat-footed’ by Pentagon’s weapons halt to Kyiv as he pledges more arms – UK Times

US president Donald Trump continued his tirade against his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as he faced delay in ending the Ukraine war while Moscow amped up attacks on its smaller neighbour.

In a televised meeting of top officials, Mr Trump said: “We get a lot of bull**** thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless”.

The US president said he is “looking at it very strongly” to impose further sanctions on Russia, without sharing further details but added that any action would come as “a little surprise”.

He has threatened, but held off on, imposing new sanctions against Russia’s oil industry to try to prod Putin into peace talks.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed two drones that were heading towards Moscow, the mayor of the Russian capital Sergei Sobyanin said this morning.

Mr Sobyanin did not report any damage in his post on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia halted flights for about half an hour overnight at the Sheremetyevo international airport outside Moscow, to ensure air safety, it said on Telegram.

President Donald Trump’s decision to send more weapons to Ukraine came after he privately expressed frustration with Pentagon officials for announcing a pause in some deliveries last week – a move he felt wasn’t properly coordinated with the White House, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The Trump administration is in the eye of a storm after the Pentagon announced last week that it would hold back some air defence missiles, precision-guided artillery and other weapons pledged to Ukraine because of what US officials said were concerns that American stockpiles were running short on supply.

Mr Trump marked a U-turn on Monday and said the US will have to send more weapons to Ukraine, effectively reversing the move.

Two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the sensitive internal discussions, said there was some internal opposition among Pentagon brass to the pause – coordinated by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby – before it was announced.

One of the people described Trump as being caught “flat footed” by the announcement. The White House did not respond to queries about whether Mr Trump was surprised by the Pentagon pause.

Polish and allied aircraft were activated in the early hours today to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched air strikes targeting western Ukraine, near the border with the Poland, the Operational Command of the Polish armed forces said this morning.

At 0215 GMT, most of western Ukraine had been under air raid alerts for nearly three hours following Ukrainian Air Force warnings of Russian missile and drone attacks.