Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, is shown with U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice-President JD Vance at the White House in Washington, D.C.. (Photo: Reuters)

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Monday the suspension of military assistance to Ukraine as he seeks to pressure Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in peace talks with Russia.

This followed a tense Oval Office meeting where Trump and vice president JD Vance reproached Zelenskyy for not being allegedly grateful enough for Washington’s military aid and hesitant on diplomatic approach to end the war with Russia.

A White House official told French news agency AFP on condition of anonymity, that Trump is focused on reaching a peace deal and the military aid pause will remain in place until Zelenskyy has made commitment to seeking peace talks.

“We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution. The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well,” the official said.

Trump told reporters earlier on Monday that he does not rule out a pause. According to CNN sources, the disruption in the flow of US arms to the front line would rapidly weaken Ukraine’s chance of pushing back invading Russian troops.

“My Republican colleagues who have called Putin a war criminal and promised their continued support to Ukraine must join me in demanding President Trump immediately lift this disastrous and unlawful freeze,” said Gregory Meeks, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The pause has gone into effect immediately and impacts hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry in the process of being sent to Ukraine, The New York Times reported.

Zelensky for his part said Monday he was seeking for the war to end “as soon as possible.”

The comment came after Zelensky accused Russia — which invaded Ukraine in 2014 and greatly expanded the conflict in 2022 — of not being serious about peace.

He insisted tough security guarantees were the only way to end the war.

Russia invaded Ukraine on 24th February 2022, in a major escalation of the war which started in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, and has triggered the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.

The invasion has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties, according to reports.