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US President Donald Trump has expressed disappointment with Russia and announced he would make a “major” statement in this regard next week.
“I’m disappointed in Russia, but we’ll see what happens over the next couple of weeks,” Trump told NBC News. “I think I’ll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday,” he said, declining to elaborate.
He also revealed the details of what he said was a new deal among the United States, NATO and Ukraine over the shipment of weapons from the United States.
“We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100%. So what we’re doing is the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons [to Ukraine], and NATO is paying for those weapons,” Trump said, according to NBC News.
He added that the deal was reached at a NATO summit last month.
“We send weapons to NATO, and NATO is going to reimburse the full cost of those weapons,” Trump said, according to NBC News.
Trump restarted the shipment of U.S. weapons to Ukraine this week after the Defense Department this month held up a scheduled shipment of weapons to the country at war with Russia.
The pause, ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appeared to catch many in the Trump administration, including State Department officials, by surprise, NBC News reported.
Asked Thursday about that weapons pause, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about it.” He added that Hegseth is “doing a great job.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier said he expressed the United States' frustration that more progress has not been made on ending the war in Ukraine in a meeting on Thursday with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.