Russian President Vladimir Putin gave President Donald Trump a "very big middle finger" by launching massive strikes on Ukraine within hours after they wrapped up their telephone call on Thursday, and the United States must respond with further support for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told Newsmax Saturday. 

"Trump did everything possible to make concessions and offers to Putin," Volker said on Newsmax's "Saturday Agenda." "He was bending over backward to try to bring Putin to the table, to bring about a ceasefire and make it on as good a terms as possible for Putin, and Putin has just outright rejected this."

And now, the next steps should be a reliable supply of arms and ammunition to Ukraine, which it can pay for, said Volker. 

"This is not American taxpayers providing this in the future," said Volker. "This will be through loans to Ukraine, or paid by European loans, or paid for by this minerals deal."

Further, the United States must put pressure on Putin's state budget, said Volker. 

"He is still making money from oil and gas and financial transactions," he said. "We need to impose the secondary sanctions that [Sen.] Lindsey Graham has proposed in the Senate as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, North Korea is reportedly deploying an additional 25,000 troops to Russia, and Volker said he thinks the motivation is so it can get more missile technology, as well as getting Russia to cover it at the United Nations.

"North Korea wants to pursue its nuclear program," he said."It wants to pursue putting those nuclear weapons on missiles and wants help from Russia to do that. So it's perfectly happy to sacrifice a few thousand troops as far as how much it helps Russia."

North Korea's artillery shells do help Russia, as they allow the Russians to continue their barrages at the front line, said Volker. 

"But 30,000 troops is not a large number, and that's about the number that Russia loses in a month to six weeks, something like that," he continued. "So that's not a game changer."

Further, the argument going on about whether the United States needs to conserve its own weapons or provide them to Ukraine is a "false choice," said Volker. 

"North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia are all working together, and their one objective is to weaken the United States and weaken the West," he added. "If we can help Ukraine weaken Russia instead, that is a very good use of our ammunition."

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