CNN
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The Pentagon is unlikely to use the full billions of dollars approved by Congress to arm Ukraine before President Joe Biden leaves office, according to two U.S. officials and three defense officials.
The administration has less than two months left to spend about $7 billion, part of a massive package approved by Congress earlier this year to help Ukraine in its war with Russia. The funding allows the Pentagon to send weapons from its own stockpile, but shortages have limited the amount the U.S. can send to Kiev in recent months.
The United States has been facing limits to its ability to replenish its own weapons stocks for months, limiting what the Biden administration could send to Ukraine. The United States has expanded production capacity for critical munitions such as 155mm artillery shells since the war began nearly three years ago, but the production ramp-up is not yet complete.
The situation has become more urgent given the scale of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, including the recent use of intermediate-range ballistic missiles with multiple warheads for the first time, so the Pentagon has given all remaining authority to the military. They promised to use the money to provide aid.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news.
Last week, Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy spokeswoman, said the administration is “committed to making the most of the authority assigned to it by Congress.”
State Department officials told Congress this month that the administration is still working on allocating the remaining funds, according to a congressional source familiar with the matter. But with only 55 days left until President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, the United States still has $6.8 billion in authority to ship weapons directly to Ukraine from American inventories.
President Trump is unlikely to continue providing the same level of aid to Kiev, with CNN reporting on Wednesday that Mike Walz, the president’s nominee for national security adviser, said the president-elect would not continue to provide the same level of aid during his campaign. It reported that it is considering several proposals to end the outbreak. In one day.
One defense official acknowledged that while the size of individual military aid packages is likely to increase for the remainder of the administration, “it’s going to be difficult” to spend the remaining funds in such a short period of time. .
Earlier Wednesday, a senior Biden administration official said Ukraine should lower the military recruitment age from the current 25 to 18, calling the need “critical.”
The official insisted that the most urgent need was not weapons, but new personnel to train to replace current troops and replace those who died.
“If you look at the front and the needs, the progress the Russians have made, especially in the East, the physics, the pure mathematics, it means you need bodies,” the official said. “We need people. We need soldiers.”
The United States was recently able to approve a military aid package of about $750 million a month, one U.S. official said. This fall, the Pentagon increased the size of the military aid package at the request of Mr. Biden and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, officials said.
“We’re basically trying to put everything on the table and do everything we can to put Ukraine in the strongest position,” the official said.
The administration is now working to increase that amount to about $1 billion a month over the remaining period, but billions still remain unspent, another U.S. official said.
Both officials said large amounts of weapons and equipment, including hundreds of air defense missiles, are expected to arrive in Ukraine by the time the Trump administration takes office on January 20. It will then be up to the new government to decide whether to continue arms shipments to Kiev or use its remaining powers to send a new military aid package.
During President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the White House in September, Biden pledged billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine. But the U.S. couldn’t send all the aid at once, instead breaking it up into smaller packages announced about every two weeks.
“As part of the surge in security assistance President Biden announced on September 26, the Department of Defense remains committed to providing Ukraine with the capabilities it needs to combat Russian aggression through the end of his administration.” officials told CNN.
The Biden administration continues to announce military aid packages twice a month, but it is still far short of the pace needed for the U.S. to spend the remaining funds. In the past two months, the United States has announced aid to Ukraine totaling $1.9 billion in five different aid packages, but that number will need to triple to take advantage of the funds left by the Biden administration. The final package, announced on November 20, was worth $275 million and included much-needed artillery shells and drones.
Mr. Biden led a concerted effort to win over some skeptical Republicans in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, to pass a supplemental funding bill in April that included $61 billion in aid for Ukraine.
“It will make America safer. It will make the world safer. And it will continue America’s leadership in the world,” Biden said upon signing the bill April 24. On the same day, the United States announced a $1 billion military aid package for Ukraine.
However, the value of the aid package rapidly declined as the stockpile of weapons and equipment that the Pentagon was able to send to Kiev dwindled.
