Trump says Putin ‘Let me fall “while Ukraine obtains $ 3.5 billion in arms financing

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he had been “abandoned” by his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The one I thought was the easiest would be because of my relationship with President Putin,” Trump said at a joint press conference in London with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer. “But he dropped me down. He really dropped me. Was going to be Russia and Ukraine. But we will see how it goes.”

Months of peace negotiations led by the United States – including an Alaska summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin – have not led to breakthroughs to end the war in Ukraine.

“War is a different thing,” said Trump. “Things happen that are very opposed to what you thought. You thought you will have an easy period or a difficult period, and that turns out that it is the opposite.”

Trump and Zelenskyy come together as Polish pressures on NATO on the fly area on Ukraine

President Donald Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin in August at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, in order to end the war. (Julia Demaoree Nikhinson / The Associated Press)

Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday. Putin will not be present – Russia will be represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov.

Trump said of Putin: “He kills a lot of people, and he loses more people than he is, you know, that he kills. I mean, frankly, Russian soldiers are killed at a higher pace than Ukrainian soldiers, but, yes, he dropped me. I don’t like to see – it’s death.”

The president then thought that the war “does not affect the United States”.

To Starmer, he said, “Of course, you are much closer to the scene than we have. We have an entire ocean that separates us. But I will say that. These are millions of people died in this war. Millions of souls. And they are not American soldiers, mainly soldiers.

Meanwhile, Ukraine expects $ 3.5 billion in weapons in the United States to be made up soon to finance its war efforts, Zelenskyy said on Wednesday.

“We will certainly have Patriot and Himars missiles,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“We have received more than $ 2 billion from our partners specifically for the Poul program. We will get additional funds in October. I think we will reach around 3.5 to 3.6 billion dollars,” added the president. This funding came from Ukrainian allies in Europe.

The United States has approved the first new arms packages for Ukraine this week. The Defense Under-Secretary for Elbridge Colby policy has signed two $ 500 million packages as part of the Poul program, Reuters reported for the first time.

“The Ministry of War facilitated this first sale of weapons in accordance with the first priorities and efforts of President Trump America to end this brutal war, which was led by the incompetence of Joe Biden, at an end,” said a senior administration official at Fox News Digital, confirming the sale.

The list of requirements in priority Ukraine, or Poul, was created to rationalize Ukraine access to advanced weapons by pooling allied contributions to purchases managed by the United States. Instead of sending species directly to kyiv, the partners engage funds that Washington uses to acquire systems from American defense companies.

Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and other NATO members would be of the main contributors, although the exact rupture has not been made public.

A patriotic anti-missile defense system manufactured in the United States is one of the high-end weapons Ukraine says that it will soon receive new allied funding. (Images Jens Büttner / Getty)

Trump NATO’s agreement to arm Ukraine is gaining in GOP skeptics

Trump’s decision to rely on NATO allies’ money rather than looking for additional credits from the congress marks a net change in American policy, allowing it to maintain the arsenal of Ukraine while diverting criticism from the legislators suspicious of a help more funded by taxpayers.

In July, the Pentagon interrupted weapons expeditions to Ukraine, which had been approved as part of the Biden administration, citing strains on the United States’s own stocks of ammunition. Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered an examination of American stocks after years of exhaustion for the war in Ukraine, as well as operations against Houthis in the Middle East and assistance in Israel for his war in Gaza.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that Kyiv is expecting $ 3.5 billion in weapons as part of a new program supported by European allies. (Images Antonio Masiello / Getty)

The renewed weapon flow also highlights the strains on the industrial basis of American defense. The Pentagon runs to double the monthly production of artillery shells, but the leaders admit that the reconstruction will take years in the midst of competing requests from Ukraine, Israel and operations in the Middle East.

The Pentagon stops certain weapons shipments in Ukraine for concerns about American stocks

The chief of staff of the army, the general, Randy George, warned that the use of several million dollars interceptors against cheap drones is not durable, urging the industry to innovate towards defenses at a lower cost. The imbalance between high -end American systems and mass use by Russia of cheap drones and artillery is now one of the determining strategic challenges of war.

The objective of the army is to double the monthly production of 150 mm by taking advantage of advanced automation.

The Ukrainian soldiers from the 44th artillery brigade draw an autopropled belly to the Russian positions on the front line of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Wednesday August 20, 2025. (AP photo / Danylo Antoniuk)

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General George said that the Services branch also envisaged new ways whose companies can produce ammunition “which bring us back to the cost curve”, which means equivalent to the cost or cheaper than the incoming weapons they cut down. “What we don’t want to do is get $ 3 million missiles from $ 50,000 drones or $ 10,000 drones.”