The United States will provide nearly $1 billion more in long-term arms aid to Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday as the Biden administration rushed to spend all the money approved by Congress to bolster Kiev before President-elect Donald Trump took over. office next month.
The latest package will include additional drones and munitions for the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. While these weapons are now critically needed, they will be funded through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays for long-term systems to be kept under contract.
The weapons systems purchased are often intended to support Ukraine’s future military capabilities, not make an immediate difference on the battlefield.
The USD 988 million package is on top of an additional USD 725 million in US military aid, including counter-drone systems and HIMARS weapons, announced on Monday, which will be delivered to the front lines more quickly from the Pentagon’s stockpiles.
Since the February 2022 invasion by Russia, the United States has provided more than $62 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
“The baton will be passed soon,” Austin said. “Others will determine the course ahead. And I hope they build on the strength we’ve built over the past four years. ” Ukraine is facing an intensified offensive by Russia, which is now using thousands of North Korean troops to step up its fight to retake the Kursk region. Moscow has also launched intermediate-range ballistic missiles and regularly hits civilian infrastructure in Kiev.
With Trump questioning whether he will maintain military aid to Ukraine, the Biden administration is trying to spend every dollar left over from the massive foreign aid bill passed earlier this year to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position.
“This administration has made its choice. Congress also has a bipartisan alliance. The next administration must make its own choices,” Austin said in a speech to an annual gathering of national security officials, defense firms and lawmakers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
Trump arranged hasty meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday to reopen Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Macron and other European leaders are trying to persuade Trump to maintain support for Ukraine.
Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine and called for an early end to the war, raising concerns about the conditions for any future talks on Ukraine.
Austin said he was “confident that President Reagan will stand up for Ukraine, American security and human liberties”.
It was one of Austin’s last major speeches as President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense and the cap of his more than 41 years of service as a soldier and general.
Under Austin’s watch, the Pentagon began a regular meeting in 2022 that now counts more than 50 countries to figure out how to get tens of millions of rounds of ammunition and billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons into Ukraine. Without that flow of support, it is likely that the country would have fallen after invading Russia.
“Together, we helped Ukraine survive an attack by the largest military force in Europe,” Austin said.
Austin and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, a longtime Republican leader, were honored for their lifetime service at the convention, and they used the opportunity to press the US to continue building and supporting its alliances against Trump’s “America.” First” policy.
Austin called the Ukraine Defense Liaison Group “the most effective global alliance since President George HW Bush and Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait,” noting that “the United States and our friends have become the arsenal of Ukrainian democracy.”
Before Saturday’s announcement, about $8 billion remained to be used to pull existing weapons out of the U.S. stockpile and put more weapons under contract to help Ukraine.
“We’re not going to stop Putin in Ukraine and we’re not going to give you anything more,” said Washington state Rep. Adam Smith said on a panel at Reagan National. Defense Forum. (AP)