US sending $300 million in ammunition, weapons to Ukraine

The Biden administration said it was sending $300 million more in ammunition and other weapons to Kyiv in a stopgap move to boost Ukraine’s forces while Congress debates a new aid package.

The Pentagon plans to transfer artillery rounds, rockets for Ukraine’s Himars launchers, antiaircraft missile and antitank weapons, using funds in the Army budget left over from weapons contracts for replacing arms sent to Kyiv, officials said, according to WSJ.

The new assistance package also includes additional shorter-range ATACMS missiles, an administration official said. That version of the weapon has a range of about 100 miles and is armed with cluster munitions.

The U.S. has already provided a modest number of the missiles to Kyiv, and the inclusion of additional ATACMS, which stands for the Army Tactical Missile System, wasn’t publicly announced. ATACMS are surface-to-surface missiles that can be fired by the Himars, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, launchers.

The new military assistance is intended to temporarily ease some of Ukraine’s equipment shortfalls, which have contributed to battlefield setbacks amid Russian assaults.

“When Russian troops advance and its guns fire, Ukraine doesn’t have enough ammunition to fire back. That’s costing terrain, it’s costing lives and it’s costing us, the United States and the NATO alliance strategically,” said Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, at a White House news conference.

Sullivan told reporters that the aid would be rushed to Ukraine and might only sustain the country’s military for a couple of weeks.  “It’s not going to be for a long time,” he said, underscoring the importance of securing congressional approval of the stalled aid package.

Ukraine has also been pushing the Pentagon to provide long-range ATACMS missiles, which have a range of more than 180 miles and could add to Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian forces in Crimea, U.S. officials said.

Pentagon officials had previously insisted the U.S. military needed to retain all of its longer-range ATACMS to meet its own military requirements. But the Pentagon is now open to providing the longer-range ATACMS because of progress in acquiring a follow-on system dubbed the Precision Strike Missile, U.S. officials say.

That removes a major impediment to providing the long-range variant of the missile, though officials declined to say whether Biden will send the system.

The Pentagon last provided military aid to Ukraine in December, with a $250 million package, saying then it wouldn’t send more until it had additional supplemental funding from Congress. In all, the U.S. has said it has sent approximately $44.2 billion worth of military aid since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

A new $95.3 billion aid package focused on Ukraine and Israel passed the Democratic-run Senate last month, but hasn’t moved in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has said he wouldn’t bring the funding bill to the floor in its current form.

With a date for a vote on the package still uncertain, the Pentagon was able to find additional funds for Ukraine after contracts to replace U.S. military stockpiles with equipment and weapons already provided to Kyiv came in under budget, defense officials said.

The cheaper-than-expected contracts allowed the Pentagon to move replenishment funds back to those dedicated to supporting Ukraine, the officials said, stressing that it wasn’t clear such savings would be available again.

“This is a bit of an ad hoc or a one time shot. We don’t know if or when future savings will come in,” a U.S. defense official told reporters.

House Democrats have moved to force a vote on the aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, as impatience with Johnson prompted them to seize on a rarely used parliamentary tactic that could enable them to circumvent Republican leadership.

Democratic leaders told rank-and-file lawmakers that they would begin accepting signatures on a so-called discharge petition Tuesday morning. The petition allows rank-and-file members to bypass House leaders and put legislation directly on the floor provided they can garner 218 signatures—or a majority of the seats in the House.

The additional funding comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to lead the Ukraine Contact Group meeting next week in Germany, where he will meet with allies, some of whom have sought to bolster military aid to Ukraine amid stalled U.S. efforts.

In Brussels, European Union member states are poised to reach a deal on providing an additional €5 billion (equivalent to $5.4 billion) in funding to bolster military aid for Ukraine, EU diplomats said.

An EU fund, which has been in place since the early days of the war, compensates member states for a portion of the costs of the military supplies they deliver to Ukraine. So far, the fund has committed around €6 billion in repayments to EU countries.

Member state ambassadors will meet on Wednesday to make a final decision. However EU diplomats said a deal seems to be in place after France compromised on its insistence that money be used to compensate member states only for weapons purchased within the EU for Ukraine.