Trump says US will send Patriot missiles to Ukraine

United States President Donald Trump has said he will send Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine as his administration signals growing disillusionment with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to negotiate an end to Moscow’s invasion.

“We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sunday.

“Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening,” Trump said.

“So, there’s a little bit of a problem there. I don’t like it.”

Trump said he had not decided on the number of Patriot batteries he would send to Ukraine, but “they’re going to have some because they do need protection”.

Trump’s comments come after he last week confirmed that his administration had decided to sell weapons to NATO allies in Europe for them to pass on to Kyiv.

Trump is set to meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte this week for discussions expected to focus on his plans to supply weapons to Kyiv.

Rutte’s trip to Washington, DC comes as Trump has teased that he will make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday.

On Sunday, Axios, citing two unnamed sources, reported that Trump’s announcement would include “offensive weapons” for Ukraine.

After campaigning on a promise to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine, Trump has expressed growing frustration with Putin’s refusal to agree to a peace deal.

While Putin has agreed to brief pauses in fighting, he has knocked back US proposals for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

Russia has argued that the proposal, which has been accepted by Ukraine, would give Kyiv a chance to remobilise its troops and rearm.

In some of his strongest criticism yet of Putin, Trump on Tuesday accused the Russian leader of throwing a lot of “b******” at the US.

“He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” Trump said.

After returning to the White House in January, Trump moved to scale back support for Kyiv, casting Washington’s aid as a drain on the US taxpayer and accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being an obstacle to peace.

While Ukraine continued to receive weaponry through funds allocated during the tenure of former US president Joe Biden, Trump had declined to approve new arms shipments to help Kyiv repel Moscow’s invasion.

Following months of unsuccessful efforts to broker a peace between Moscow and Kyiv, Trump on July 7 announced that he would begin approving shipments to Ukraine comprised mostly of “defensive weapons”.

Asked on Sunday if his upcoming announcement on Russia would involve sanctions against Moscow, Trump declined to answer but repeated that he was disappointed with Putin.

“I am very disappointed with President Putin. I thought he was somebody that meant what he said,” Trump said.

“And he’ll talk so beautifully, and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that.”

Earlier on Sunday, US Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in Congress, unveiled a bipartisan sanctions bill that he said would provide Trump with a “sledgehammer” to end the war.

“This congressional package that we’re looking at would give President Trump the ability to impose 500 percent tariffs on any country that helps Russia and props up Putin’s war machine,” Graham told CBS News’s Face the Nation.

“He can dial it up or down. He can go to zero, to 500. He has maximum flexibility.”