The Pentagon will rush $300 million worth of weapons to Ukraine after it finds some cost savings in its contracts, even though the military remains severely stretched and needs at least $10 billion to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stockpiles to aid Kiev in its desperate war. On Tuesday, the White House declared war against Russia.
This is the first security package the Pentagon has announced for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it had run out of replenishment funds. It is only in recent days that officials have publicly acknowledged that not only have they run out of replenishment funds, but that $10 billion has been overdrawn.
This announcement comes in light of a serious decline in the stock of ammunition in Ukraine and the faltering of efforts to obtain new money to purchase weapons in the House of Representatives due to Republican opposition. US officials have insisted for months that the United States will not be able to resume arms deliveries until Congress provides additional replenishment funds, which are part of a stalled supplemental spending bill.
The replenishment funds allowed the Pentagon to withdraw existing munitions, air defense systems and other weapons from its reserve stockpiles under Presidential Withdrawal Authority to send to Ukraine and then place contracts to replace those weapons needed to maintain U.S. military readiness.
“When Russian forces advance and fire their weapons, Ukraine does not have enough ammunition to respond,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said as he announced $300 million in additional aid.
The Pentagon also had a separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allowed it to finance long-term contracts with industry to produce new weapons for Ukraine.
Senior defense officials who briefed reporters said the Pentagon was able to realize cost savings on some of those long-term contracts worth about $300 million, and given the situation on the battlefield, decided to use those savings to move forward and send more weapons. Officials said cost savings essentially offset the new package and kept replenishment spending below the $10 billion level.
One official said the package represents a “one-time opportunity” — unless Congress approves a supplemental spending bill, which includes nearly $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine, or further cost savings are achieved. The package is expected to include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery shells and armored systems, the official said.
The aid announcement comes as Polish leaders are in Washington to pressure the United States to break the impasse it has reached over replenishing funds to Ukraine at a critical moment in the war. Polish President Andrzej Duda met on Tuesday with Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate, and is scheduled to meet with President Biden later in the day.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has so far refused to advance the $95 billion package, which includes aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Seeking to pressure the Republican Speaker, House Democrats launched a long-shot effort to force a vote through an impeachment petition. The measure, which rarely succeeds, will require support from a majority of lawmakers, or 218 members, to put the aid package to a vote.
The situation in Ukraine has become more dangerous, with units on the front lines rationing munitions in the face of a much better Russian force. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly appealed to Congress for help, but House Republican leadership has not been willing to put Ukrainian aid to a vote, saying any aid must first address border security needs.
Pentagon officials said Monday during brief budget talks that they were counting on the additional amount to cover the $10 billion replenishment gap.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said: “If we do not get the $10 billion, we will have to find other ways.” “Right now, we are very focused on the need for this additional amount.”
This is the second time in less than nine months that the Pentagon has “found” money to be used for additional arms shipments to Ukraine. Last June, Defense Department officials said they overestimated the value of weapons sent by the United States to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years.
At the time, Pentagon officials said the review found that the military services used replacement costs rather than book value for equipment pulled from the Pentagon's inventory and sent to Ukraine. This discovery resulted in a surplus that the department used to package the presidential recall until the end of December.
The United States has committed more than $44.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including more than $44.2 billion since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
The Pentagon has an excess of $10 billion in its replenishment account, partly due to inflationary pressures, and partly due to new systems that the Pentagon is seeking to replace older systems at greater cost, such as the upcoming Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, for which the Army is purchasing a new system to replace one Army Tactical Long Range Missiles, or ATACMS.
The vast majority of that munitions came from Army stockpiles due to the nature of conventional ground warfare in Ukraine.
Months without further shipments of US support have hurt operations, and Ukrainian forces withdrew from the eastern city of Avdiivka last month, where outnumbered defenders have held off a Russian offensive for four months.
CIA Director William Burns told Congress that entire Ukrainian units told him in recent days that they had only a few dozen artillery shells and other munitions left. Burns described the withdrawal from Avdiivka as a failure to resupply ammunition, rather than a failure of Ukrainian will.
Cobb and Baldor write for The Associated Press. Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer and Stephen Groves contributed.
