Trump Says NATO Countries Will Buy Weapons to Give to Ukraine

If the plan is finalized, it would allow critical aid to flow to Ukraine as it endures one of Russia’s heaviest assaults of the war.

NATO countries have devised a novel way to provide critical American weaponry to Ukraine for its fight against Russia, and President Trump suggested for the first time that he’s likely to go along with it.

Rather than having the United States continue to give its weapons to Ukraine, officials in NATO countries conceived a plan where the Trump administration could sell them to allies, which would then give them to Ukraine. Not only could that be a financial windfall for the United States, it would also shield Mr. Trump — who has expressed skepticism of devoting U.S. military support to Ukraine — from accusations of direct involvement in the war.

And according to defense officials and experts in Europe familiar with the discussions, it would speed desperately needed Patriot air defenses and ammunition to Ukraine as it withstands some of the heaviest Russian bombardments of the three-year war.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump said he intended to adopt that strategy. Other NATO countries would buy American weapons for Ukraine, he said, after striking the deal at the NATO leaders’ summit last month in The Hague.

“We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100 percent,” Mr. Trump said in an NBC News interview. “So what we’re doing is, the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons” to Ukraine, he said, adding, “And NATO is paying for those weapons.”

NATO coordinates weapons donations for Ukraine, but it does not directly buy or supply arms itself. That is done by the alliance’s 32 member countries and other partners worldwide.

“I’ve just spoken with President Trump & am now working closely with Allies to get Ukraine the help they need,” Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, said on social media on Thursday. He called the recent uptick in Russian airstrikes “deplorable.”

Details of the agreement were still being worked out, defense officials in Europe and Washington said. On Friday, Mr. Rutte held a conference call with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the new top NATO and American military commander in Europe, to discuss details of the plan Mr. Trump outlined, a senior U.S. Defense Department official said.

Mr. Rutte told the Pentagon officials that he had already received calls from half a dozen European ministers who expressed support for the approach.

The plan for other NATO countries to buy the weapons for Ukraine was hatched after Mr. Trump won last November’s presidential election, according to a European defense official familiar with the discussions. NATO sought to continue shipments to ensure Ukraine could keep defending itself, the official said, even if Mr. Trump pulled U.S. backing once he took office after months of criticizing former President Joseph R. Biden’s support for the Ukrainian military.

“The political calculation after the presidential election was such that, where Biden was willing to use U.S. resources to aid Ukraine’s defense, the Trump administration is willing to sell U.S. equipment,” said Rafael Loss, a defense and security expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Hours before Mr. Trump’s announcement, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said both Germany and Norway were prepared to buy Patriots for the war effort if Mr. Trump approved.

Mr. Zelensky had met on Thursday with Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, and discussed additional German weapons aid to Ukraine. “We are ready to purchase additional Patriot systems from the USA to make them available to Ukraine,” Mr. Merz told reporters after the summit.

Ukraine, which will not pay for the weapons, also supported the proposal.

“Under Biden, we didn’t get as much as we needed, but weapons were coming,” Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Defense and Intelligence Committee in Ukraine’s Parliament, said in an interview.

“Now, Trump is not ready to give anything for free,” Mr. Kostenko said. “We need to engage Europe. And we want America to at least sell weapons.”

Until recently, the Trump administration appeared disinclined to continue providing military support to Ukraine. As recently as last week, the White House acknowledged that the Pentagon had paused the delivery of some air defense interceptors and precision-guided bombs and missiles to Ukraine, citing concerns that U.S. weapons stockpiles were dwindling.

Mr. Trump reversed that decision days later and escalated his criticism of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over stalled cease-fire negotiations and its intensifying bombardment of Ukraine. On Friday, Mr. Zelensky said on social media that it appeared that the “supplies have been restored” and that discussions would continue with American officials next week.

Defense officials and experts said NATO allies were mulling several ways in which they could buy weapons to give to Ukraine. All would likely ease onerous defense export controls that have previously slowed American weapons transfers from allies to Ukraine.

The senior American defense official said one approach would be for European countries to establish special accounts that would be managed by General Grynkewich, the top NATO and American military commander in Europe. Funds would be deposited in the accounts to pay for the American weapons sold to the allies, and then transferred to the U.S. Treasury.

The weaponry and munitions would be transferred from the allies to Ukraine, according to the American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning

The weapons could be pulled from U.S. military stockpiles or procured from American manufacturers — or both — but the European defense official said the aim was to get arms to Ukraine as quickly as possible without waiting for them to be built. A single Patriot battery, for example, can take up to three years to produce and deliver.

The Biden administration generally donated weapons from Pentagon stockpiles, using a presidential drawdown authority, instead of selling them to Ukraine. Either way, dipping too deeply into stockpiles could put at risk U.S. troops and interests overseas that might then be short of weapons to defend themselves.

Allies could also buy American-made arms from other countries and then give them to Ukraine, as the Czech Republic is doing with 155-millimeter artillery shells it is sourcing from sellers in secret around the world. In this case, the United States likely would only need to waive the export controls to ship the weapons from those countries to Ukraine.

Or, allies could give their weapons systems to Ukraine and then receive priority to buy replacements from American manufacturers. That is already happening in some cases, Mr. Loss said, as with Germany’s purchase of eight Patriot batteries last year from the American manufacturer Raytheon to make up for three that Berlin donated to Ukraine in 2023 and 2024.

Mr. Loss said Germany’s eight new Patriots — each of which costs up to $1 billion — are scheduled to be delivered by 2029.

There are about 180 Patriot batteries worldwide, 94 of which are owned by NATO allies, according to weapons trackers at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. The United States owns two-thirds of the NATO Patriots.

“The Americans need some of them themselves, but they also have a lot of them,” Mr. Merz said on Thursday.

American defense officials have openly worried since the start of the war in Ukraine, in 2022, about diverting Patriot systems from the Mideast or Asian allies that could be vulnerable to American adversaries in both regions.

At the same time, allies in Europe warn that they, too, could be targeted by Russia.

During a rare news conference on Friday, the head of the French army, Gen. Thierry Burkhard, said Russia was priming itself for a long war and considered France as its prime adversary in Europe because of its support for Ukraine.

“Putin said it: ‘France is my main adversary in Europe,’” General Burkhard said. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about other countries,” he added.

Reporting was contributed by Maggie Haberman, Jim Tankersley, Catherine Porter and Alina Lobzina.

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

• Trump’s Frustration With Putin: President Trump lashed out at President Vladimir Putin of Russia, signaling a change in his posture toward the conflict.
• Sanctions for Russia?: Flattery and pressure — coupled with Trump’s growing dissatisfaction with Putin — have helped build momentum for new economic punishments.
• Putin, Undettered: The Russian leader is brushing aside Trump’s professed disappointment in him and is pushing ahead in Ukraine with renewed intensity, analysts and people close to the Kremlin said.
• ‘Widespread’ Rights Violations: In symbolic rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, Moscow was again blamed for the downing of Flight MH17 in 2014 and for an array of war-related human rights violations, including the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.
• Reemergence of Land Mines: Five countries plan to revive the use of the weapon prohibited by treaty for more than a quarter of a century, hoping to strengthen their defenses against any Russian attack.
• Russian Minister Found Dead: Russia’s transport minister was found dead from a gunshot wound, the Russian authorities said, hours after the Kremlin announced he had been relieved of his duties.
• Trump’s Call With Putin: President Trump said that a phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia had not resulted in any movement toward ending the war.

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• Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs, videos and radio transmissions to independently confirm troop movements and other details.
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