Trump allies caught off guard by Pentagon’s Ukraine weapons freeze

The Pentagon’s decision to halt some weapons shipments to Ukraine blindsided even people who are usually closely briefed on such matters, including members of Congress, State Department officials and key European allies, according to six people familiar with the situation.

The surprise move on Monday has fueled concern and frustration, including among top Republicans, that one senior Pentagon official appeared to hold outsized influence over the decision.

The pause — reported first by POLITICO — was driven by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby and a small circle of advisers over concerns that certain weapons stockpiles in the U.S. were running low.

Even allies of President Donald Trump were frustrated by the move, and accused officials such as Colby — who led a review of U.S. munitions stockpiles that preceded the freeze — of pushing the move forward without notifying the rest of the administration or others.

They noted that the decision to halt the weapons shipments to Ukraine seemed to be made with little coordination within the administration after massive cuts to the National Security Council shrank the once-powerful policy body to a fraction of its former size.

“I think it’s all made by the DOD policy director, this Colby guy. We essentially don’t have a national security adviser,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). “I’m not even sure [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio was consulted on this one … There’s internal division in the White House.”

The move caused bewilderment and whiplash in Ukraine and raised questions across the Atlantic about whether America was stepping back permanently from military support of Kyiv — just as Trump appeared to warm to the idea of sending more aid to protect Ukraine from Russian bombardments.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to Trump on Tuesday to request an emergency briefing from the White House and Department of Defense on the pause on military aid, which was approved during the Biden administration.

One U.S. official said the Pentagon’s decision was uncoordinated and caught the State Department by surprise. The U.S. official, along with the others, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.

Two other U.S. officials said Pentagon leadership did not seek any input from the State Department, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv or Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg’s team before pulling back a shipment of critical arms that were already on the ground in Poland. Some in the Joint Staff were also opposed to the halt, both officials and a person familiar with the discussions said.

Both the White House and the State Department pushed back on the notion that the munitions pause caught administration officials off guard. “This is false,” said a White House official who was granted anonymity to talk about an ongoing review. “The president and top officials expect the DOD to regularly review aid allocations to ensure they are in line with the America First agenda.”

But the official wouldn’t say exactly when the president and top aides were made aware of the decision to stop the weapons shipment, saying only that they knew “prior to the story” POLITICO published on Tuesday.

Colby did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his role in the decision. In a statement sent from a White House spokesperson Tuesday evening, Colby said that the Pentagon “continues to provide the president with robust options to continue military aid to Ukraine” while “rigorously examining and adapting its approach … while also preserving U.S. forces’ readiness.” He said the original reporting was “an attempt to portray division that does not exist.”

During a Friday briefing on Ukraine for Congress, officials from the State Department and the Pentagon made no mention of the pause and are not answering official inquiries about it, a congressional aide said.

The aide added that Ukraine has a “critical need for continued replenishment of various arms given continued Russian assault,” particularly air defense like Patriot interceptors, long-range rockets and conventional shells, which have been stopped.

Across the Atlantic, European diplomats and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s team were scrambling to find out why the U.S. had abruptly frozen aid once the White House confirmed the news. Neither Zelenskyy nor the European Union received advanced notice, according to a European official and a Ukrainian adviser.

The U.S. and Ukraine are working to set up a call between Trump and Zelenskyy, two people familiar with the planning said. The idea was set in motion on Tuesday as word began filtering out that the U.S. had slammed the brakes on shipments of the weapons to Ukraine.

“The U.S. is informing Ukraine [of the decision] today in Kyiv and a phone call will also be organized very soon between Trump and Zelenskyy,” said a European diplomat familiar with the planning. “The U.S. says this is not a pause, not a suspension. The U.S. is still very much in the process of determining how best to support Ukrainian defense. This is still a priority.”

Zelenskyy, in a statement on Wednesday, said that Ukrainian officials were in touch with their U.S. counterparts to try to get clarity on the situation. “One way or another, we must ensure protection for our people,” the Ukrainian leader said.

The episode underscores the outsized role that Colby is playing in the agency — and how tightly decisions are being held within some parts of the Pentagon’s ranks.

As one of the few officials with prior government experience, Colby “understands how paper moves in the building in a way most other people who are there now just don’t,” said one former Pentagon official. “The front office at the Pentagon has been hollowed out and most people there don’t have any experience in government, which is also true at the National Security Council” at the White House, the person added.

Colby was one of the primary authors of the 2018 National Defense Strategy during the first Trump administration. He is also heading up a Pentagon review of the AUKUS submarine pact with Australia and the United Kingdom, an assessment that also came as a surprise to key Trump administration officials.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in both parties said they were surprised by the Trump administration’s decision, with some questioning why Congress was not consulted beforehand. Such a move would be required before pausing weapons shipments that were already approved by lawmakers. “The Biden administration would come in with what the Ukrainians wanted, what we could supply, and then we’d have discussions about what would be expedited or put in the pipeline,” Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the ranking member on the House panel overseeing DOD’s budget. “Those conversations are not taking place now.”

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said he found out about the decision from news accounts — but he had no complaints.

“I don’t have any reason at this point to doubt the explanation that was given — that we’ve reached critical shortages of our own,” Cole said in an interview. “I know how much more material we’ve gone through, more than anybody six months ago thought we would, because of what happened in the Middle East. So there are limits. We have real problems with our industrial base. I expect the president’s first obligation is to look after the defense of the United States.”Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, initially said he wasn’t aware of a delay.

But after his staff received a readout from the Pentagon, Rogers called it “just a regular pause to look and see what our stockpiles are,” after recent military operations in the Middle East. The Armed Services Committee, Rogers said, is waiting for more information.

“They’re just getting a good count. And there are three different categories [of munitions] where they think we’re a little bit below where we should be for our own purposes,” he said. “We’re trying to get them to give us some final details of what those three categories are.”

Ultimately, the Pentagon should publicly clarify why it paused the weapons shipments, he said.

“They just need to be more transparent about this because people are confusing this with our commitment to Ukraine,” Rogers said. “It has nothing to do with that.”

The panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), said he was “blindsided — because this administration does not communicate with us at all.”

Joe Gould contributed reporting.