Trump and NATO strike ‘really big deal’ to arm Ukraine, Europe gets bill

Ukraine is finally getting “top-of-the-line weapons" that it has craved ever since the unprovoked 2022 invasion by Putin’s Russia.

Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced what Rutte called a "really big" deal on Monday. A deal which Trump says involves the US sending Ukraine weapons through NATO, without Washington picking up the tab.

After multiple rounds of ‘will he, won’t he’, this latest twist can be a game-changer for the Russia-Ukraine war.

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Rutte declared that Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, Netherlands as well as Canada have shown willingness to be part of this. He added that this “is really great news” for Ukraine and that if he was Vladimir Putin, he would reconsider his position and “take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously”.

But much remains unknown. Neither Trump nor Rutte said anything about the amounts and precise types of weapons, how quickly they would be supplied, or where the funds would come from.

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According to US officials, European countries should be willing to tap into their own stockpiles to meet Ukraine's needs, and then buy replacements from the US. Such a move would get weapons to Ukraine quickly, but would leave donor countries’ defences exposed.

European ministers said they would now need to examine how new purchases of US weapons could be paid for. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen suggested that European countries could team up to buy US weapons systems.

But not everyone is happy. And no, we’re not talking about Russia’s supreme leader.

Some of Trump’s beloved conservative members of the "Make America Great Again" movement have reacted angrily to the president's plans. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a key Trump ally, and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon are among those who have criticised the decision to sell weapons to NATO. Bannon went a step further and told his podcast listeners that Ukraine is a "European war".

Either way, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy must be breathing a sigh of relief. Because about two weeks ago, on July 1, Kyiv had gotten a mighty jolt to its system.

The Pentagon had announced that it was halting shipments of some missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine due to worries that US weapons stockpiles have fallen too low.

Now, thanks to some arduous negotiations, many of them involving Rutte, US-made weapons will once again reach Ukraine.