U.S. President Joe Biden.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President Joe Biden said Monday (December 30, 2024) that the United States will send nearly $2.5 billion more in weapons to Ukraine as his administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The package includes $1.25 billion in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the military to pull existing stock from its shelves and gets weapons to the battlefield faster. It also has $1.22 billion in longer-term weapons packages to be put on contract through the separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI.

Mr. Biden said all longer-term USAI funds have now been spent and pledged to use all the remaining drawdown money before leaving office.

“I’ve directed my administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.”

The new aid comes as Russia has launched a barrage of attacks against Ukraine’s power facilities in recent days, although Ukraine has said it intercepted a significant number of the missiles and drones. Russian and Ukrainian forces are also still in a bitter battle around the Russian border region of Kursk, where Moscow has sent thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim territory taken by Ukraine.

The Biden administration is pushing to get weapons into Ukraine to give Kyiv the strongest negotiating position possible before Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Mr. Trump has talked about getting some type of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia and has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Many U.S. and European leaders are concerned that Mr. Trump’s talk of a settlement might result in a poor deal for Ukraine, and they worry that he won’t provide Ukraine with all the weapons funding approved by Congress.

The weapons systems being pulled from existing stockpiles through this latest weapons package include counter-unmanned aerial systems munitions, air defense munitions, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, air-to-ground munitions, anti-armor systems, tube-launched missiles, fragmentation grenades, and other items and spare parts.

Including Monday’s announcement, the U.S. has provided more than $65 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.

Washington:

The United States is the first to acknowledge that its long-awaited $61 billion aid package for Ukraine is not a “silver bullet.”

As weapons and ammunition are rushed to the country, other issues such as manpower shortages in Kyiv’s struggling military have come to the fore.

Meanwhile, the monthslong delay in passing the aid package — caused by wrangling among US lawmakers — has further weakened Ukraine’s position on the battleground, according to analysts. 

President Joe Biden, who quickly signed the law Wednesday after it passed Congress, said the bill “should have gotten there sooner.”

Jake Sullivan, his National Security Advisor, said the aid package “will make a difference,” but warned “there is no silver bullet in this conflict.”

“One capability is not going to be the ultimate solution,” Sullivan told a White House briefing, though he added “Ukraine’s position in this conflict will improve and we believe that Ukraine can and will win.”

Kyiv has been heavily reliant on billions of dollars of US military aid in its war with Russia following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. 

But in recent months Ukrainian forces — outgunned and outmanned — have struggled to hold back Russian troops. 

And in the United States — Ukraine’s largest provider of military assistance — a bogged-down Congress had not approved large-scale funding for Kyiv since December 2022 before the new package was passed this week.

It contains nearly $14 billion to train, equip and finance the needs of the Ukrainian army.

Manpower shortage

Garret Martin, of the American University School of International Service in Washington, said the delay by US lawmakers in passing the aid package “had a cost.”

“The aid can shore up Ukraine but it’s not a magic wand that could fix all the challenges they face,” Martin said.

“What the package cannot do is deal with the shortage of manpower,” he added. 

Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky have discussed the manpower issue, according to the White House.

In April, Kyiv reduced the minimum age for military conscription from 27 to 25, making thousands more men eligible for the draft. 

And this week, it stopped issuing new passports abroad to military-aged Ukrainian men, as part of measures to push them to return home and fight.

Max Bergmann, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the impact of American aid would depend on European efforts.

“European nations need to ramp up (weapons) production now,” Bergmann said. 

“Europe’s goal should be to put itself in a position to potentially fill a future gap left by the United States should it not pass another supplemental.”

Bergmann said that Ukraine should use 2024 to “hold the line, exhaust and attrit Russian forces,” with next year possibly presenting an opportunity for a Kyiv offensive.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)