Weapons to Start Flowing Into Ukraine Under European Deal With Trump
A package of U.S. cruise missiles is among the first shipments of purchases by NATO allies to be sent to the embattled country.
nytimes.com
Europe has begun buying American weapons for Ukraine in earnest, only weeks after President Trump struck a deal with NATO allies to do so.
The latest sale, announced by the State Department on Thursday, will send 3,500 extended-range cruise missiles and GPS navigation kits to Ukraine once Congress formally approves it, as expected. They cost $825 million, paid for by Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, with some unspecified financial assistance from the Pentagon.
The missiles can be fired from fighter jets, and have a similar range to the Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles that Ukraine has used to strike Crimea and into Russia.
The sale marks one of the first purchases by European countries on behalf of Ukraine since Mr. Trump and other NATO leaders reached the deal. It is a policy shift for the United States, which had provided about $67 billion worth of weapons and other military aid directly to Ukraine during the Biden administration.
It will also offer a financial windfall for American weapons producers while shielding Mr. Trump — who has expressed skepticism of devoting U.S. military support to Ukraine — from accusations of direct involvement in the war.
“It’s not a game changer for Ukraine’s Air Force, but it might signal that there’s a productive conversation between Europeans and the Trump administration, in terms of future supply of modern equipment to Ukraine,” said Rafael Loss, a defense and security expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Last month, President Trump said European allies had agreed to buy American-made weapons for Ukraine under a deal clinched with the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte. Previously, the Biden administration had sent new shipments of weapons to Ukraine, from air defenses and tanks to ammunition, every few weeks since the start of the war. That included a period when supplies began to run out in 2023 during a 119-day debate in a Republican-led Congress over whether to continue the paying for them.
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