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US President Donald Trump has said on Monday he has struck a deal with NATO to purchase the weapons that will be delivered to Ukraine, as he met NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Washington.
“We made a deal today where we will be sending weapons to (Ukraine) and NATO will be paying for it,” Trump announced at a press conference at the White House.
The US is ready to implement 100% tariffs on Russia in response to President Vladimir Putin’s lack of interest in ending his war in Ukraine, which could kick in in 50 days, according to Trump.
“We’re very unhappy with Russia and we’ll be doing very severe tariffs … at about 100%,” Trump said.
“We’ve spent $250 billion on this war … and we want to see it end. I am disappointed in Putin because I thought we’d have a deal two months ago,” he added.
Trump has publicly expressed irritation with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reluctance to reach a peace deal in Ukraine, accusing the Russian leader of throwing “bulls**t” at Washington.
“I am very disappointed with President Putin,” Trump said.
“I thought he was somebody that meant what he said. And he’ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that.”
In an about-turn last week, Trump said that Washington would send sophisticated weapons, including Patriot air defence systems, to Ukraine via NATO.
The Patriot missile system can detect and intercept a wide range of oncoming air targets, high-end ballistic missiles in particular, and is regarded as one of the world’s best, at a time when Moscow is increasing its nightly missile and drone attacks amid its all-out war against Ukraine, now well into its fourth year.
Speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome on Thursday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Germany would pay for two of the systems, while Norway has agreed to supply one.
Other European partners have also said they are prepared to help, Zelenskyy said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that some of the US-made weapons that Ukraine is seeking are already deployed with NATO allies in Europe.
Those weapons could be transferred to Ukraine quickly, with European countries buying replacements from the US, he said.
“It’s a lot faster to move something, for example, from Germany to Ukraine than it is to order it from a (US) factory and get it there,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur.
After repeated Russian drone and missile onslaughts on Kyiv, authorities announced on Friday that they are establishing a comprehensive drone interception system under a project called Clear Sky.
The project includes a 260-million-hryvnia (approximately €5.3 million) investment in interceptor drones, operator training, and new mobile response units, according to Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv military administration.
Rutte will be in Washington on Monday and Tuesday for talks with Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and members of Congress.Â
“I’m gonna have a meeting with the secretary general who’s coming in tomorrow,” Trump told reporters in Washington on Sunday night.
“But we basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated (weapons) and they’re gonna pay us 100% for them.”
Trump and Rutte last met at the NATO summit in Brussels in late June.
Additional sources • AP
