The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it will provide Ukraine with $250 million worth of weapons in what will be the last batch of military aid for the war-torn country unless Congress acts in the new year.
The Biden administration’s latest commitments to materiel include surface-to-air missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, HIMARS rockets, 155mm and 105mm artillery shells, TOW missiles, Javelin and AT-4 anti-tank systems and more than 15 million small munitions. weapons ammunition, according to the Department of Defense.
The security aid package would be the last authorized by the Biden administration for legislative action absent Ukraine on additional spending requests that have languished before lawmakers for months, the White House said earlier this month.
“We are still planning another aid package to Ukraine later this month,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said last week. “However, when that is done … we will have no recharge power available to us.”
“We will need Congress to act without delay, as we have said,” he added.
The latest aid package includes weaponry from existing US stockpiles. Global Image of Ukraine via Getty Images
Kirby cited a Dec. 18 letter to lawmakers from the Pentagon’s watchdog, Deputy Defense Secretary Michael McCord, in which DOD officials warned that all funding earmarked for Ukraine would run out.
“To protect US military readiness,” McCord said, Wednesday’s withdrawal from existing Defense Department stockpiles will be the last for Ukraine.
McCord stated that the Pentagon will transfer about $1.1 billion to its account to replace its inventory and reimburse “defense services” provided to Ukraine.
“When these funds are obligated, the Department will exhaust the funding available to us for security assistance to Ukraine,” McCord wrote.
Republican senators want to tie additional aid to Ukraine to changes to US immigration laws. via REUTERS
The package announced on Wednesday is the 54th tranche of equipment delivered from the Pentagon’s inventory to Kyiv since August 2021.
President Biden asked Congress in October to approve $61.4 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine as part of a $106 billion emergency funding request, but support for continuing to help Ukraine repel Russian aggression has slipped on Capitol Hill.
Republicans in the Senate were trying to negotiate a deal that would tie Biden’s Ukraine aid request to legislation that would tighten US immigration laws, but negotiators from both sides of the aisle failed to reach an agreement before adjourning for the holidays.
A White House spokesman said the Biden administration’s “surge authority” for Ukraine will end after this latest aid package. MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters last week that negotiators will “work very, very diligently throughout the December and January recess” with the goal of “getting something done once we get back.”
The House and Senate are scheduled to return the week of January 8, and face tight deadlines to complete additional bill work before moving to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Congress has approved about $111 billion in aid for Ukraine, including $67 billion in military funding, since Russia attacked its neighbor on February 24, 2022.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
