Pentagon announces final Ukraine aid package without Congress

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it will provide Ukraine with $250 million worth of weaponry 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 commitment of materiel includes surface-to-air missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, HIMARS rockets, 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, TOW missiles, Javelin and AT-4 anti-tank systems and more than 15 million rounds of small arms ammunition, according to the Department of Defense. 

The security assistance package will be the final one the Biden administration authorizes for Ukraine absent legislative action on a supplemental spending request that has languished before lawmakers for months, the White House said earlier this month. 

“We are still planning one more aid package to Ukraine later this month,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said last week. “However, when that one is done … we will have no more replenishment authority available to us.”  

“We’re going to need Congress to act without delay, as we have been saying,” he added. 

Kirby cited a Dec. 18 letter to lawmakers from the Pentagon’s comptroller, Undersecretary of Defense Michael McCord, in which the DOD official warned that all funding earmarked for Ukraine would soon be exhausted. 

“In order to protect US military readiness,” McCord said, Wednesday’s drawdown from existing Defense Department stockpiles would be the last one for Ukraine. 

McCord noted that the Pentagon will be moving about $1.1 billion to its accounts to replace its inventories and reimburse “defense services” provided to Ukraine. 

“Once these funds are obligated, the Department will have exhausted the funding available to us for security assistance to Ukraine,” McCord wrote.

The package announced Wednesday is the 54th tranche of equipment sent from Pentagon inventories to Kyiv since August of 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 fend off Russia’s invasion has been slipping on Capitol Hill. 

Republicans in the Senate are attempting to negotiate a deal that would link Biden’s Ukraine aid request with legislation that would tighten US immigration laws, but negotiators from both sides of the aisle failed to reach an agreement before going on break for the holidays. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)  told reporters last week that negotiators will be “working very, very diligently over the December and January break period” with the goal of getting “something done as soon as we get back.”

The House and Senate are scheduled to return the week of Jan. 8, and face a tight deadline to finish work on the supplemental bill before turning to avoiding a partial government shutdown.

Congress has already approved about $111 billion in assistance for Ukraine, including $67 billion in military funding, since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022.