US Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson said on Thursday there is “no appetite” for approving another funding bill for Ukraine, a day after President Donald Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” with a “4% approval rating,” while pressuring him to sign a deal that would force Zelensky to single-handedly give away almost 50% of its natural resources, without consulting the Ukrainian legislature.
There’s no appetite for that,” Johnson told Newsmax during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC, when asked about further financial aid for the war.
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“We have to bring [the war] to an end. And I can tell you that our European allies understand the necessity as well. It’s [dragged] on too long,” Johnson added.
Rumors spread within the Kyiv government Thursday that Weapons sales and deliveries to Ukraine from the US have been halted, according to one Ukrainian lawmaker’s claim, later contradicted by another Verkhovna Rada member.
Lawmaker Roman Kostenko, who works as the secretary of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, said some companies involved in weapons sales and deliveries to Ukraine are waiting for political decisions, but the exact reason for the suspension is unclear.
UK-Funded Poll Shows 63% of Ukrainians Approve of Zelensky
Oleksandra Ustinova, a fellow lawmaker and advisor to Ukraine’s defense minister, later rejected Kostenko’s claims. “The United States did NOT stop the sale of weapons to Ukraine,” Ustinova said on Facebook.
The rumor, if true, could result from the deteriorating relations between Kyiv and the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump and his aides have been sharply escalating anti-Ukraine and pro-Kremlin rhetoric over the past several days, following US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, just hours after the talks in Riyadh ended, Trump delivered a blow to Ukraine and a boost to Putin by falsely claiming that President Volodymyr Zelensky has only a “4% approval rating” in the country and that presidential elections in Ukraine are necessary.
In response to this statement, Zelensky has warned that Trump has succumbed to Russian “disinformation.”
In another heated exchange on Wednesday, Trump escalated his attacks on Zelensky, delivering his harshest critique yet. In a post on his Truth Social platform, he mocked the Ukrainian leader as a “modestly successful comedian” and a “dictator without elections.”
He blamed Zelensky for dragging the US into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, claimed that Washington spent $350 billion on Ukraine and criticized Europe’s contributions – claims that have been proved wildly inaccurate – before adding that Zelensky has “done a terrible job” for his country.
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