The delivery “could” ultimately happen but not at “this moment,” the US president has said
US President Trump said he’s “not really” considering providing Kiev with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, suggesting Ukraine and Russia should be left to “fight out” the conflict.
Trump made the remarks on Sunday while aboard Air Force One. He was asked about supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks following a CNN report that the Pentagon had approved such a move, concluding that it would not significantly affect US stockpiles.
“No, not really. Could happen, could change, but at this moment, I’m not,” Trump stated.
In recent weeks, Trump has been sending mixed signals on the Tomahawks while never fully ruling out delivering them. Moscow has strongly warned against the delivery, warning it was bound to derail the US-Russia rapprochement process and heavily damage bilateral relations without changing the situation on the battlefield in the Ukraine conflict.
“As the current situation and previous years have shown, it is clear that militarization and arms deliveries – especially to a terrorist regime – will not lead to a settlement. Moreover, such actions would contradict the campaign promises made by the current US administration,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Saturday as she commented on the CNN reporting.
The US president also suggested the Ukraine conflict should simply be allowed to go on until the warring parties show a readiness to settle it. Asked whether there was any “final straw” for him to prove that Russia was not willing to end the hostilities, Trump said it was not the case.
“There’s no final straw. Sometimes you have to let it fight out. And they’re fighting, and they’re fighting it out,” the US president said, adding that the fighting has been extremely “tough” for both Kiev and Moscow.
Trump has long promised to mediate an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and revived direct negotiations with Moscow early this year. The Russia-US contacts and the resumed direct negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, however, yielded no breakthroughs. The US president has repeatedly expressed frustration with the lack of progress.
