Zelensky declined “very powerful” U.S. munitions due to lack of aircraft, Trump says

U.S. President Donald Trump said that Vladimir Zelensky would have refused to accept certain “very powerful munitions” of American manufacture because he “doesn’t have the planes and everything needed to use them.”

Trump made the remarks in an interview with Time magazine.

The topic of munitions arose in the context of a conversation about the state of U.S. military stockpiles. Trump assured that American arsenals are “in great shape.”

“We have a lot of weapons. You know, we’ve been restocking for the last six months. Biden gave Ukraine a tremendous amount of munitions — far more than we used — but we’re in great shape. We’re in great shape, and on top of that we’re now actively building up our stockpiles and keeping them here. And then, you know, we’ll be giving them to others — to our allies,” Trump said.

Responding to reporters’ requests for more detail, the head of the White House mentioned the Ukrainian president.

“The stockpiles of some types of munitions are somewhat lower than others. We have munitions that are medium and above medium grade — very powerful, exceeding in their characteristics everything that came before. There are munitions that President Zelensky would have refused to accept, even though they are enormously powerful; he wouldn’t have taken them because he didn’t have the planes and other equipment needed to use them. And that story got out,” Trump said.

Exactly which munitions Trump was referring to is not entirely clear from his words. Kyiv has recently been speaking constantly about a critical shortage of interceptor missiles for Patriot air defense systems and has been appealing to various countries to transfer them to Ukraine.