WASHINGTON DC – On Wednesday, the Trump administration informed Congress of its intention to green-light the export of defense-related products to Ukraine through direct commercial sales (DCS) of $50 million or more, Kyiv Post has learned from diplomatic sources.
The permission – the first of its kind since Trump returned to the White House over 100 days ago – comes just weeks after the administration paused all Ukraine-related military aid for review, emphasizing a new priority: leveraging US influence to end the conflict through diplomacy rather than prolonged military support.
Congress, in its latest aid package for Ukraine, had approved over $1 billion worth of DCS-related arms sales for Ukraine. The previous US administration under President Joe Biden had allowed some of it to be used to transfer badly needed weapons, such as fully automatic .50 caliber machine guns, to the war-torn country.
From 2015 through 2023, the US had quietly authorized the permanent export of over $1.6 billion in defense articles and services to Ukraine via DCS.
“All DCS are quiet; they don’t get announced publicly like Foreign Military Sales,” Colby Badhwar, security assistance analyst at Tochnyi, a research group, told Kyiv Post’s Washington correspondent.
“The news here is basically that it [US arms sales] is continuing, despite everyone predicting that Trump would cut Ukraine off completely,” he added.
The $50 million sale license notice, first seen by Kyiv Post, was submitted to Congress via the Arms Export Control Act, a law that authorizes US Presidents to control the import and export of defense articles and services, according to formal notice sent to the Congress from the State Department’s Legislative Affairs office.
The proposed sale covers the export of defense articles, including technical data, and defense services to Ukraine.
The move also comes just weeks after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced his country’s intention to buy $30-50 billion worth of air defense systems and weapons from the US as a form of future security guarantees.