US sending Ukraine $300M in military aid in first package since December

WASHINGTON – The US will send Ukraine up to $300 million worth of much-needed military equipment, the first aid tranche to be dispatched to the war-torn nation in more than two months, the White House announced on Tuesday.

The materiel — announced by the Biden administration amid an impasse in the House over continued assistance — will include anti-aircraft missiles, ammunition, artillery rounds and “some anti-armor systems” from US stockpiles, senior defense officials told reporters at the Pentagon.

While President Biden still has the congressional authority to send Kyiv another $4.4 billion worth of military aid from US stocks, Congress has not approved funds to replace any weapons sent without the passage of a $95 billion supplemental spending bill that includes roughly $60 billion for Ukraine and is stalled in the House.

The $300 million comes from savings the Pentagon was able to identify in Army budgets, according to the officials, including a number of price-saving deals reached with contractors in the form of bulk orders.

“In this case, we are not digging the hole deeper – we’re staying even – while recognizing that Ukraine is in a very tough spot this moment,” one of the officials said. “This is not necessarily an easy call, but you’ve got a situation where we are short on funding – they are short on ammunition.”

“We have an opportunity here to do something, but it doesn’t change the fact that we still have a hard problem and we need to – have to – act,” the official added.

The Ukrainian military has been forced to husband resources after more than two months without additional US aid. Kyiv’s forces have been forced to cut back on artillery strikes – saving what precious little ammunition remains to get the biggest boom for the buck – literally.

For example, while a fully stocked unit may launch a strike once an enemy is discovered on the battlefield, an Ukrainian artillery unit commander told The Post on the frontlines last week that his troops have been forced to ignore small groups of Russian soldiers in order to target large clusters of fighters.

“Artillery resolves the main problems – they can provide cover for the our infantry in battlefield because it is very precise and we can destroy enemy infantry some vehicles like tanks,” the commander told The Post. “It saves the lives of our soldiers.”

Ukraine’s dwindling supply of artillery was part of the calculus in shoe-stringing together a new package without additional funding, the officials said before cautioning that such financial gymnastics will not likely be possible again.

“There was an imperative to act and we had on our side – an ability to help the secretary [of defense Lloyd Austin] and the president – with a way to at least cover the cost of this one package,” an official said. “But that’s this one package. It’s not a fountain of of money that is going to sustain us.”

While the officials said the Pentagon is “confident” there are enough votes in the House to secure additional funding for Ukraine, Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing hold on sending the bill for a floor vote is causing troubling unpredictability.

“Given that [Austin] has expressed his concerns about doing any more drawdowns – because we have the ability to move funds out of our stocks but without the ability to replenish them,” an official said, “we are putting our own readiness at some risk.”