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Trump says he will send Patriot missiles to Ukraine
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Sits beside NATO's Rutte in Oval Office
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Shift brought on by disappointment with Russia
By Anastasiia Malenko, Steve Holland and Dan Peleschuk
KYIV/WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) -
U.S. President Donald Trump announced new weapons for
Ukraine on Monday, and threatened to hit buyers of Russian
exports with sanctions unless Russia agrees a peace deal in 50
days, a major shift in policy brought on by disappointment with
Moscow.
Sitting side-by-side with NATO Secretary General Mark
Rutte in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that he was
disappointed in Russian President Vladimir Putin. Billions of
dollars in weapons would be distributed to Ukraine, he said.
"We're going to make top-of-the-line weapons, and they'll be
sent to NATO," Trump said, adding that Washington's NATO allies
would pay for the weapons.
The weapons would include Patriot air defence missiles,
which Ukraine has urgently sought to defend its cities from
Russian air strikes.
"It's a full complement with the batteries," Trump said.
"We're going to have some come very soon, within days... a
couple of the countries that have Patriots are going to swap
over and will replace the Patriots with the ones they have."
His threat to impose so-called secondary sanctions on
Russia, if carried out, would be a major shift in Western
sanctions policy. Lawmakers from both political parties in the
United States are pushing for a bill that would authorise such
measures.
Throughout the more than three-year-old war, Western
countries have cut off most of their own financial ties to
Moscow, but have held back from taking steps that would restrict
Russia from selling its oil elsewhere. That has allowed Moscow
to continue earning hundreds of billions of dollars from
shipping oil to buyers such as China and India.
"We're going to be doing secondary tariffs," Trump said. "If
we don't have a deal in 50 days, it's very simple, and they'll
be at 100%."
A White House official said Trump was referring to 100%
tariffs on Russian exports as well as secondary sanctions on
other countries that buy its exports.
Trump, who returned to power this year promising a quick end
to the war, said his shift was motivated by increasing
frustration with Putin, who, he said, had talked about peace but
continued to strike Ukrainian cities.
"We actually had probably four times a deal. And then the
deal wouldn't happen because bombs would be thrown out that
night and you'd say we're not making any deals," Trump said.
(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel in Kyiv, Kevin
Lamarque in Washington, Sabine Siebold in Berlin and Lidia Kelly
in Warsaw, Writing by Timothy Heritage and Peter Graff
Editing by Gareth Jones and Andrew Heavens)