This major escalation will heap more pressure on Zelenskypublished at 06:43 Greenwich Mean Time 4 March

06:43 GMT 4 March

Sarah Smith
North America editor

The presidential order to pause all current American military aid to Ukraine takes effect immediately and includes all US military equipment not currently in Ukraine, including weapons in transit and at depots in Poland.

The pause will affect more than $1bn (£790m) in arms and ammunition, including rockets, anti-tank weapons, and armoured vehicles of the kind Ukraine has relied on in its effort to repel the advance of Russian forces.

After the explosive clash with Ukraine's President Zelensky in the Oval Office last week, Donald Trump has said that he thinks Ukraine's leader should be more appreciative of the assistance he has already received from the US – and made clear that he does not believe Zelensky is ready to discuss a peace deal with Russia.

In an interview with Fox News a few hours ago, Vice-President JD Vance said the door was open for Ukraine to return to negotiations if Zelensky "is willing to seriously talk peace".

When he is ready to talk about what he is prepared to give up, Vance said, President Trump will be the first person to pick up the phone.

This is a major escalation in the row between the US and Ukraine, which will heap more pressure on Zelensky to sign an economic deal with America allowing access to critical mineral deposits in his country and to agree to peace talks without the security guarantees he has been seeking.

We are starting to get some more reaction to the news that the US has paused military aid to Ukraine.

Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian member of parliament in President Zelensky's party, says he is "shocked" at the news.

He tells the BBC's Newsday: "It's unbelievable what's unfolding because I couldn't imagine in my worst dreams that Trump would be cutting off military aid to Ukraine when we need it so much."

He says he thinks US President Donald Trump is trying to side-line Ukraine and Europe and make a deal with Russia.

"I think Mr Trump should seriously think about how he's going to enter in history.

"To me it's a date that will go down in history infamy."

How foreign policy hawk Marco Rubio's tone evolved on Ukrainepublished at 06:25 Greenwich Mean Time 4 March

06:25 GMT 4 March

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

Image source, EPA

When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine happened in 2022, Marco Rubio - then a senator - wondered aloud why the US "can’t begin to openly say" to Ukrainians that "we will support them as long as they are willing to fight, even if it’s an insurgency".

He also called Russian President Vladimir Putin an "expert liar" who would only agree to a ceasefire if "he sees some strategic or tactical benefit".

Rubio was unanimously confirmed in the Senate as America's top diplomat.

Many of the senators who backed him may have hoped he could play a moderating force in this administration, especially on questions of Russia and Ukraine.

The secretary of state has firmly backed Trump and Vance, however, following their row last week with Zelensky in the Oval Office.

In the last few hours Rubio wrote on X: "President Trump is the only leader in the world right now who even has a chance at bringing an enduring and lasting end to the war in Ukraine."

In other US news, the Trump administration's tariffs on Chinese, Mexican and Canadian imports have come into effect.

Trump has announced 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico, and 20% tariffs against China - doubling the levy on China from last month.

Canada has said it will retaliate with 25% tariffs on $150bn worth of US goods.

US markets dropped and Asian markets turned jittery at the possibility of a trade war.

You can follow our live coverage of these developments here.

The US Congress has approved more than $180bn (£140bn) in total assistance for Ukraine since Russia's invasion nearly three years ago.

There is also budgetary assistance mostly delivered through a World Bank trust fund and through the US Agency for International Development, which has been sharply cut by the Trump White House.

A chunk of this funding helps Ukraine pay the wages of teachers and doctors to keep the government running.

The just-announced pause in military aid applies mainly to aid previously approved by the Biden administration. Those shipments have already slowed to a trickle since President Trump took office in January.

Trump has not approved any new assistance to Ukraine under his own presidential authority and there is no sign of a fresh congressional aid package coming any time soon.

Read more: How much has the US given to Ukraine?

Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has objected to the White House's Ukraine aid freeze.

"This is a critical time for Ukraine... I do not think we should be pausing our efforts," Collins said, according to CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju.

"It's the Ukrainians who are shedding blood."

Earlier, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a fierce Trump ally, was one of the first to back the US president's proposal to pause Ukraine aid.

"I strongly support President Trump in halting US weapons shipments to Ukraine. President Trump is working to bring peace and stop the daily slaughter of thousands in the war," Greene said on X.

"I’ve voted NO to funding this war from the start and I support peace."

Image source, Getty i

Steven Pifer, who was US Ambassador to Ukraine under Bill Clinton, says the decision to pause aid is “very wrongheaded” as it “at some point will have a real effect on the battlefield”.

Pifer said: “That's the big question to me. I mean, President Trump has tons of leverage on Russia, if he wants to use it.

“He could tighten sanctions on Russia's economy. He could work with the G7 to seize $300bn in Russian Central Bank assets and make that money available to Ukraine."

Pifer adds: “And for somebody who talks about the art of the deal, he's done nothing to increase his leverage with Putin.

“He has lots of leverage, by virtue of the American assistance to Ukraine with Zelensky and now he seems to be though, pushing and coming down hard on the wrong party."

Image source, Getty Images

Charles Kupchan, a former director with the US National Security Council under the Obama administration, told the BBC: "What we're seeing here is bold arm twisting coercive diplomacy."

"Basically Trump is saying to the Ukrainians, you want US weapons, you want US support, it's time for you to go to the negotiating table with Russia," he said.

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

President Trump has done this before – put pressure on President Zelensky by withholding aid.

Five years ago Trump held up congressionally authorised assistance to Ukraine, in an attempt to get Zelensky to dig up dirt on then rival Joe Biden.

Ukraine had been fighting Russia and Russia-backed insurgents since 2014.

The moment led to Trump’s first impeachment, where he was accused of an abuse of power - only the third American president to be in that situation.

He was acquitted by the Senate.

Zelensky would later go on to say there was no blackmail by Trump and there were no "conditions" from the American side.

Some more lines from Vance's interview on Fox News - this time on his stance on Europe.

The vice president tells host Sean Hannity that while Trump has a great relationship with many European allies, they say different things in public and private about the Russia-Ukraine war.

He says: "Here’s the problem with the Europeans … they need to be realistic and the craziest part about this, Sean, is sometimes you have European heads of state who in public will puff up their chest and say, ‘We’re in this with President Zelensky for the next 10 years.’

"And in private they’ll pick up the phone and say, ‘This can’t go on forever, he has to come to the negotiating table.’

"I honestly don’t care what the Europeans say in public, what I care is what they say in private.

"And what they need to be saying to President Zelensky is this can’t go on forever, the bloodshed, the killing, the economic devastation, it’s making everyone worse off."

Continuing his Fox News interview, JD Vance says "of course, the door is open" for Trump and Zelensky to resume negotiations, but with a caveat.

"So long as Zelensky is willing to seriously talk peace. You can't come into the Oval Office or anywhere else and refuse to even discuss the details of a peace deal," Vance says.

Vance says the problem is that Zelensky was unwilling to talk peace without security guarantees, a discussion the White House has said should come after a peace deal.

"When they're willing to talk peace, I think President Trump will be the first person to pick up the phone," Vance says.

Image source, EPA

An interview with Vice-President JD Vance has just aired on Fox News.

The segment was filmed before the announcement about Ukraine aid, so Vance didn’t address the news directly.

But he did comment on the Oval Office spat between Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and himself.

Vance tells host Sean Hannity that Trump “tried to be diplomatic” at the beginning of the meeting.

But after a reporter asked him a question, Vance says he said something that "really set Zelensky off”.

“I tried originally to defuse the situation a little bit,” Vance says.

He says Zelensky had a “lack of respect…a sense of entitlement”.

“He showed a clear unwillingness to engage in the peace process,” Vance says, adding “he’ll get there eventually”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has just released a statement in response to the decision to pause Ukraine military aid.

"President Trump is the only leader in the world right now who even has a chance at bringing an enduring and lasting end to the war in Ukraine," Rubio says.

"We want to get the Russians to a negotiating table. We want to explore whether peace is possible."

It's the first public comment from a Trump administration official.

We can bring you some more reaction to this announcement from Michael Carpenter, who was a former director of the US National Security Council under President Joe Biden.

"I think it's just astonishing," he tells the BBC.

"In this war there is a very clear aggressor and a victim. And Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim and we are acting as if it were the reverse.

"So to be pausing assistance which is essentially defensive assistance to allow Ukrainians to defend their homeland from a blatant and brazen ugly brutal attack from Russia, it's astonishing that the United States would be doing this."

What could Zelensky do to reverse this?published at 01:32 Greenwich Mean Time 4 March

01:32 GMT 4 March

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Say sorry to President Trump? Accept the minerals deal regardless?

It appears that may be what the Trump administration wants – they blame President Zelensky for this blow-up, falsely accusing him of not saying thank you enough.

This extraordinary move to pause aid is clearly designed to put pressure on the wartime leader and get him to make concessions.

But President Zelensky has already said he’d do that.

In an interview last year, he suggested accepting that Ukrainian territories ceded to Russia will remain that way. But he said Nato membership could be offered to unoccupied parts of the country.

This month he went as far as to say he would stand down in exchange for Nato membership.

However, President Trump ruled out Kyiv joining the alliance, falling in line with Moscow’s view. Trump has never said what concessions he wants Russia - who invaded Ukraine - to make.

The flow of US military aid to assist Ukraine's war effort can be complex, but it has taken three main forms. Let's break them down:

• The presidential drawdown authority
• State Department Foreign Military Financing (FMF)
• Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI)

The Presidential Drawdown Authority allows the US military to dip into its own stocks to send supplies to Ukraine. There is approximately $3.85bn (£3.03bn) remaining in drawdown authority for equipment that can be taken from US stockpiles, a senior defence official told the BBC on Monday. The White House determines whether that assistance is released.

There is a separate $1.5bn in State Department Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Ukraine that could be released to the Ukrainians, as either a grant or a direct loan. FMF is currently under review by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) gives Ukraine money to take directly to US manufacturers.

It's unclear at this stage exactly how today's announcement will impact each of these aid streams, and what may happen to them going forward.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Washington DC

In the early afternoon, US President Donald Trump went on his social media platform Truth Social and warned Zelensky that "America will not put up with it for much longer".

His message was in response to a comment made by Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, when the Ukrainian President said during a press briefing that a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war "is still very, very far away".

It comes after the pair's epic fallout on Friday, where Trump said Zelensky "is not ready for peace".

After Trump's latest Truth Social post on Monday warning about what America would "put up with", Zelensky wrote on X that "security guarantees are essential".

He made the same point on Friday - during his heated back-and-forth with Trump and Vice-President JD Vance - all while the world watched.

Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, calls the White House's decision to halt aid "a shameful abandonment of Ukraine".

"This decision won't make our country safer," she says on X.

"It will embolden Putin and our adversaries while weakening our relationships with democratic partners."

Peter Welch, a Senate Democrat from Vermont, has also expressed his dismay on X.

"Putin is a war criminal. Zelensky is a hero. Trump is weak," he says.

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

According to officials this pause is said to be temporary until President Trump determines that Ukraine can demonstrate a “commitment to peace negotiations” with Russia.

The Trump administration basically wants President Zelensky to sign the minerals deal and “make peace” with Russia, without giving him the security assurances he wants.

Trump aides have instead been talking about “economic assurances”.

The dramatic timing of Trump’s actions are probably not coincidental - they come less than 24 hours before his address to Congress, an opportunity to tout his achievements.

Getting a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia is something he covets.

This news comes after last week's angry meeting between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington.

The visit was supposed to be about ending the war in Ukraine, and the signing of a minerals deal. What happened instead was a public clash in the Oval Office that saw Zelensky being told to leave the White House.

• Zelensky challenged Vice-President JD Vance - who was also in the room - on his assertion that a "path to peace" was through diplomacy, saying Russian leader Vladimir Putin has broken deals before. The vice-president then responded by accusing the Ukrainian president of being "disrespectful" and said "you should be thanking the president"
• Trump told Zelensky at one point that he was "gambling with World War Three"
• Zelensky said that while the US was currently protected from Russia by an ocean, they would feel it "in the future"
• The US president went on to tell Zelensky that he shouldn't tell Americans how to feel, as he was "in no position to dictate that"

• Trump then threatened: "You're either going to make a deal or we're out"

• Zelensky was later told to leave the White House and a luncheon and planned news conference were abruptly cancelled