U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a suspension of all military aid to Ukraine, escalating pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky mere days after a heated exchange in the Oval Office cast doubt on U.S. support for Kyiv.
A senior Defense Department official told Bloomberg that all U.S. military assistance to Ukraine is on hold until Trump determines that Ukrainian leaders are making a genuine effort toward peace.
The pause affects not only future aid but also weapons already in transit, including shipments on aircraft and ships, as well as equipment awaiting transfer in Poland.
Edit: changed source from Bloomberg to Kyiv Independent b/c there’s no paywall and more detail in the story.
Traitor
How much more do we have to witness before we accept, as a society, that Donald Trump and the GOP are enemies of the United States of America, and act accordingly?
We are suffering and losing our position as a world leader because of a felon rapist traitor. When are we going to stop this?
When are we going to stop this?
When congress starts impeachment proceedings. Call your representatives. Listening you complain is their job.
Didn’t you guys try that before?
You can be impeached more than once. I think this would be his third time.
Yep that’s my point
It sounded like you were saying “You already impeached him, and he’s still president (so impeaching him again is a waste of time)”, but I could’ve misread you.
That is also my point. Don’t worry though, you keep impeaching him until he dissolves congress.
You’re response being ‘yeah but you can be impeached multiple times’ exactly demonstrates the weakness of that action.
What do you think “impeachment” is? That’s like saying “You can’t sue him a third time. You already sued him twice, and nothing happened.”
I have not a lot of knowledge how American politics work, but isn’t this for congress to decide? how is Trump so powerful? (sorry for my daft question)
It isn’t daft. The Republicans since Reagan have pushed a fringe legal theory called the Unitary Executive Theory. Basically, they want the president to fully control the executive branch and military such that theirs is the only voice that matters for much of the government. Not unlike a king, but partially checked by congress and the courts. They have been taking (illegal) actions to try to get sued, and also have been suing others/other branches of government, to try to get the Supreme Court to hear cases that will support this fringe legal theory so that it becomes the law of the land.
I am not a lawyer, but this is possibly something Trump can legally do since he is Commander in Chief of the armed forces. However, this seems more like an apportionment thing, which is Congress’ responsibility. Congress has allocated funds to send military aid to Ukraine. So, even if Trump as Commander in Chief could say “no more weapons to ukraine”, it seems doubtful to me that he could (legally) stop weapons shipments currently en route.
But, by the time whatever government office sues the office of the president to get a judge to enjoin them to send the agreed upon weapons that were already apportioned, it will already have hurt Ukraine somewhat. Trump often weaponizes inefficiency. And these sort of illegal acts aren’t crimes per se - they’re just procedural breaches - the legal remedy is just to reverse the action.
So, probably not legal. But Trump gets to weaponize his administration’s incompetence (or feigned incompetence) to at least delay aid. More competent people may support these actions, knowing they’re illegal, to try and strengthen the president’s role even further.
Wow! Thanks so much for this reply! this is very helpful, thnx a lot
The answer is simpler than that: the “checks and balances” system is a facade created to prevent meaningful progressive policy from passing. There’s a reason why Trump can modify a billion laws from day 1, but poor Biden couldn’t possibly do anything to codify abortion as a right or prevent the bombing of children in Gaza.
The answer is simpler than that: the “checks and balances” system is a facade created to prevent meaningful progressive policy from passing.
Checks and Balances always work in favor of the more evil side.
The “Good Guys” would respect the checks of balances, making it harder to enact good policies. The “Bad Guys” would just ignore all this, and just use executive orders for everything, as we can see this administration doing right now.
Checks and Balances can only prevent corrupt individuals, it prevents one branch from becoming evil, not an entire party that has taken over all 3 branches of government, and working together to destroy democracy.
So it turns out that what matters most in the end is less the intricacies of the system, and more what type of people get elected
This isn’t quite right. Trump didn’t really modify laws. That isn’t even something he can claim to do since he is the head of the Executive branch, not the Legislative one. He issued executive orders, many of which were illegal, and he had some cronies who enacted some of them anyway - others did not enact some of these, and others were not really actionable (like when he declared that no one has a gender). He did rescind many policies, but he can’t just make laws go away on his own. There are literally hundreds of court cases currently challenging these executive orders - seeing as how the judiciary is the primary check on the executive branch, that is the system working to check presidential power.
However, I am not a liberal, I am a socialist and do not think this is working well - there are many problems here. The highest levels of the judiciary have been largely captured by far-right judges, many of whom are specifically aligned with Trump’s goals and support the unitary executive theory. Also, this method of checking presidential power is extremely slow. For every illegal action Trump’s administration takes, a court case has to be crafted, filed, heard, and adjudicated. Every one. And invariably, some will not reach the correct outcome and others will never actually be taken to court - there are just too many.
Basically, the administration is using the fact that they control every branch of government to dismantle or capture core government agencies and to provide cover for various illegal actions - forcing them through if only temporarily for various political and structural ends. A soft coup, basically. So yeah, the fact that something like this is possible is proof of the flaws inherent in this system of government.
That’s a lot of words to say that I’m right in practice even if not in principle lmao.
I’m a commie too, BTW. You’re way too charitable to the US institutions IMO.
https://www.itamilradar.com/2025/03/04/look-who-we-have-here/
“The ambiguous American behavior continues: on the one hand, they (verbally) threaten to withdraw support for Ukraine, including intelligence assistance, while on the other hand, they are increasing SIGINT flights over the Black Sea.”
Who says those SIGNT flights are for Ukraine anymore?
How do we know they were for ukraine to begin with? One thing is clear: they aren’t for russia so the narrative that USA is helping russia or halting operations against them doesn’t old much against the evidence.
They ARE halting operations against Russia. Factual and official. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/02/politics/us-cyber-operations-russia-suspend/index.html
And now, after stopping military aid, they’ve announced they would no longer provide Ukraine with intel. So these patrol are no longer an action against Russia, given they won’t be used in military operations. Another big win for Russia. Again factual and official.
Next step is apparently lifting sanctions against Russia https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-seeks-plan-possible-russia-sanctions-relief-sources-say-2025-03-03/ This would provide Russia with a desperately needed source of income while economists were speculating that its economy was at risk of a complete collapse in 2025. So Trump is hurrying a relief there.
Do they need to send military aid to Russia directly before we can claim they switched side?
To me it looks like they didn’t stop shit
index
Ok, let’s make sense out of this
- The US gov announced very officially they stopped providing military aid to Ukraine.
- The US gov announced very officially they stop provivding intelligence to Ukraine.
- Trump asked very openly for a draft on lifting sanctions on Russia.
But they got some planes flying over the black sea, that collect intel, the same intel they said won’t be shared with Ukraine therefore will not be used against Russia interests whatsoever, and that’s your evidence to claim their actions are ambiguous?
I was wrong. They CAN supply Russia with weapons and you’ll claim it’s still ambiguous. Actually, they can probably bomb Ukraine themselves as much as a certain individual can shoot someone on the 5th avenue without losing a single supporter.-
How many times US government announced they were working to stop the genocide in gaza but were actually fueling it?
But they got some planes flying over the black sea
They have been flying fleets of planes near russia since the war started, probably even before that but not many were watching.
Gaza and Ukraine are 2 totally different cases, using one to assess the other makes no sense. In Gaza, under Biden, they barely announced they would hold on deliveries to Israel, and they did to a bare minimum. There was no secret hidden delivery, it was in plain sight for all to see. One of the reasons is some high profile donors of the Dems are supporting Netanyahu.
Under Trump, the position has changed for a full support of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and they resumed the delivery of larger bombs, that Biden had indeed been withholding.
The US collect intelligence in many different places worldwide. They didn’t say they would stop collecting intelligence, they said they would stop sharing it with Ukraine. The goal is not hidden, it’s been announced and the acts are consistent: it’s to force Zelensky to surrender to Russia, what Trump calls a “peace plan” in exchange of… well nothing, really. Ukraine loses, as simple as that.
There is no secret chess play here. If you ask why Trump supports Russia against pretty much all of the US (former?) allies now, then we venture into speculation, though many of us have an idea. But is he supporting Russia? Yes, definitely, the evidences are compelling. That’s no longer a question. It’s more than time to accept it.
Each time I read “Trump orders”, “Trump does X”, I always ask myself: “Wait, can he do that? Congress? House? Judiciary? Cheks? Balances? Hellooooooooooo…?”…
… but this is still the first few months of his second term. At this pace, he will be a literal king in a few more months.
A scary prospect to say the least, and I hope it’s not too late for America to do something about this. This should not be normalized. This cannot be normalized.
The average us citizen doesn’t have a solid grasps of how our government actually works.
Defunding education and gutting curriculum and removing civics education has … been impactful.
I’d say the average republican does have a solid grasp of how the government works, seeing the extremely high activity of Trump’s government. Turns out the “checks and balances” and the “branches of government” and all of that shit only serves to slow down progressive policy. When it’s about bombing brown kids or defending healthcare, policy can speed through the fucking system
Checks and balances are only are good as the morals of the people enforcing them.
So they don’t formally exist and the entire political game is just about whether you choose the good or the bad representatives, and all knowledge and legislation about institutions is liable to be simply ignored without penalty
until Trump determines that Ukrainian leaders are making a genuine effort toward peace.
They are literally shooting every Russian they spot on their soil, how is that not making a genuine effort toward peace?
They are literally shooting every Russian they spot on their soil
There are 8 millions russian speakers living in ukraine i hope these don’t count as “russian”
Are they wearing a Russian military uniform? Then they are an enemy combatant.
It’s really not that hard, dude.
Not every russian is wearing one
Ok? Ukraine is obviously not targeting civilians in their drone strikes so your point is completely moot.
Let’s hope they aren’t
Only the Russian imperial narrative is so that Russians speaking people are considered Russians. There are Russian speaking people in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and in many -Stans, they are not Russians.
Not a very useful remark. The Ukrainian army is full of Russians speaking people.
There are ethnic russians there. What i’m pointing out is that “shooting every russian they spot” sounds racist.
I saw you around, and I know also you are Italian, so I will tell you in a way you understand. You are being a “puntalcazzista” to throw shade on Ukraine with vague racism claims. Anybody with a pulse will understand that “shooting every Russian on the spot” means “shooting every invader”, and that roughly would include also north Koreans or other ethnicities, should those set foot in Ukraine to assist Russian invasion. You are trying to claim an interpretation that doesn’t make sense, because - as I told you and you can easily verify - the Ukrainian army itself is full of Russian speaking people, who you might call “ethnic Russian” - whatever you think that means. So unless you are honestly suggesting that OP was suggesting Ukrainian army is also shooting on the spot to members of its own army, we both know what you are doing.
I saw you around, and I know also you are Italian, so I will tell you in a way you understand. You are being a “puntalcazzista” to throw shade on Ukraine with vague racism claims. Anybody with a pulse will understand that “shooting every Russian on the spot” means “shooting every invader”
You must be new here, people have been racist toward russians for a good time.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/27157199
How exactly i’m throwing shade on ukraine by pointing out a racist generalization in comment?
I am not new, but I have a skill that you might find useful, it’s called “context”.
racist generalization in comment?
Because there is no any racial generalization. From the context it was clear to anybody who is in good faith what OP meant. Even if it wasn’t, OP comment was a statement on what is happening, so your remark “I hope they don’t…” doesn’t make any fucking sense, because you can just check what they are doing. Currently Russians in Ukraine that are being shot are invading troops.
So let’s make a parallel. “Partisans were shooting germans”, in the context of Italian resistance. Do you think it’s a racist remark? Would you feel the need to say " oh boy, I hope they don’t shoot German civilians", “oh, there are ethnical Germans in the north, I hope they are not shooting them”. No you wouldn’t, because what you are doing is not in good faith, you are not raising any valid concern, you are just purposefully misunderstanding OP to stir shit.
partisans were shooting germans troops, soldiers or the nazi they weren’t “shooting every german on the spot"
Ok. Part 1 is done. Part 2 & 3 (order doesn’t matter) is that Trump ends sanctions and then stages a massive false flag attack that they then blame on Ukrainian Extremists upset over the ending of support to enact a full police state.
Part 4: ???
Part 5: profit
I’ve been wondering where the US Tiananmen Square is going to be.
The US already bombed black neighbourhoods and murdered unionists, and the police kills “nonwhite” people at astonishing rates, it’s just those things aren’t talked about in the US at all.
Not talked about, but I can talk about the Tulsa Race Massacre and the Ludlow Massacre without retribution from the US. I am able to.
I’m concerned when the US military is given full “The people are the enemy” attitude and to protest it becomes illegal.
Not talked about, but I can talk about
Freedom to speak, not to be heard. Good luck saying those things on TV and ever being invited again. Good luck talking about these issues in a book and getting it published.
I think the counterpoint is that when something like Kent state happened, the government backed down. The question will be if they’re willing to use live rounds in the future and not back down (not that less lethal munitions are much better, but it is different).
Kent state happened as a massacre against unarmed students. Tiananmen Square happened after several weeks of protests, in which protestors murdered and burned some soldiers and took their weapons. Only then did the military intervene.
So the military was justified in their actions at tiananmen square?
My point is that the US has not been willing to escalate by using live rounds or military intervention in over half a century (at least to my recollection) against its citizens.
Not justified, but the western version of the event is extremely falsified. Hakim has a good video on the topic.
My point is that the US has not been willing to escalate by using live rounds
Police violence aside
Entire admin is pathetic losers. And thanks a lot to all those geniuses who wouldn’t vote for Kamala because of Gaza, this is partially on your hands
For the millionth time: the results are out. The fraction of dem voters who stayed home because of the Gaza genocide isn’t high enough to warrant the loss. Stop blaming the people who stood the strongest against genocide.
How is this not seen as anything but a massive conflict of interest by anybody with any sort of authority in the current government? How?
the democrats did nothing in their time to safe guard democracy, hoping to wield fascism as a threat to motivate us to vote for their 2000-2008 era conservatism. it was an extremely dangerous game, and one they lost, because they failed to account for how fucking racist and unhinged one third of this country is. the consequence of them being fine with using fascism as a threat against us is that they are also fine with fascism being used against us. they’ll just go along with the fascist coup so long as it’s apparently what we want
Democrats have no more interest in safeguarding democracy than Republicans do. If they did, they wouldn’t continue using their ratchet effect that prevents Republican legislation from ever slipping back. And as Republicans keep shifting even further to the right, democrats continue to fill the void that Republicans just left. This is a result of 50 years of incremental fascism masquerading as ‘lesser evil.’
In exchange for what from Russia?
Mineral access after Ukraine falls. Not even like legit access for US companies, but like they do for oligarchs in Russia. Also now they might let him be the one to take out Zelensky to get back at him for not being grateful enough.
Not even like legit access for US companies, but like they do for oligarchs in Russia
Our legitimate mining corporations, their evil oligarchic resource exploiters
The U.S. Military and the CIA must know what a threat to the country Trump is, right?
…right?
Sometimes I wish the US were what tankies say it is.
You wish the US to be a genocidal empire? poof nothing’s changed
Is there a historical precedent for punishing the defender for daring to successfully resist invasion by a third country?
Economic sanctions on the early RSFSR after the Bolsheviks defeated the English, French, Italian, USA coalition that invaded them in the Russian Civil War.
I’d say that fighting off Russian invaders so your country can return to the peaceful state it was in is working towards peace.
Alternatively, has he asked Russia if it would just go home? Seems like another pretty efficient way to achieve peace.
the peaceful state it was in
Was it though? Wasn’t the Ukrainian government at war with separatist militias in Eastern Ukraine prior to 2022?
Yes, there was no peace for quite some time. They were indeed at war with separatist militias in Eastern Ukraine financed by Putin. The difference is just that in 2022 Putin got into the war openly. Well, openly, it was a “special military operation” at first, of course.
