Early in his second term, roughly a week after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, the US military issued an order to three freight airlines operating out of Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and a US base in Qatar: stop 11 flights loaded with artillery shells and other weaponry that were headed to Ukraine.
The order to halt the shipments came from the office of the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, following a meeting at the White House where the idea had been floated, though no explicit directive was issued by the president. The White House later said that Hegseth had followed a directive from Trump to pause aid to Ukraine, which it claimed was consistent with the administration’s position at the time. However, several top national security officials were reportedly unaware of the order. The cancellation of these flights disrupted the supply of military aid to Ukraine and highlighted the chaotic nature of policy-making within the Trump administration, which was marked by confusion, internal disagreements, a command structure that was unclear even to its own high-ranking members, and rumors about ceasefires and aid halts. The halt caused discomfort in Ukraine, where officials questioned the motives behind the decision, attributing it to “internal politics.” The shipping of American weapons to Ukraine involves multiple agencies and can take weeks or months to complete, with the majority of US military assistance passing through a logistics hub in Poland. These revelations of confused and potentially disruptive policy-making happen in a context of upheaval at the Pentagon, including the accusation of unauthorized disclosure of information and scrutiny of Hegseth’s communications and policies. The halted shipments included weapons previously approved by the Biden administration and authorized by Congress.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/06/canceled-ukraine-military-aid-shipments-trump-hegseth
