The weapons package, with an estimated $1 billion value, restarts an expansive U.S. effort to sustain Ukraine’s embattled military as the war with Russia bleeds into its third year. The Pentagon, having anticipated lawmakers would end their impasse, signaled in recent days it was prepared to rush at least some of this resupply to the battlefield within days.
President Biden, in remarks on Wednesday morning, announced the shipments would begin in the “next few hours,” blaming Republican lawmakers for delays in assistance that had previously flowed by the tens of billions since early 2022.
“While MAGA Republicans were blocking aid, Ukraine has been running out of artillery shells and ammunition,” Biden said, adding that Moscow’s allies in China, Iran and North Korea helped keep Russian troops in the fight with weapons and materiel.
Renewed assistance is unlikely to tip the scales in Kyiv’s favor on its own. But the infusion of artillery ammunition, in particular, will be welcomed along the front, where Ukrainian army units — forced to ration dwindling stocks — have dug in and sought to slow Russia’s advance. Western-supplied howitzers have been used to help blunt efforts to break through their lines and pin down Russian formations. Ukrainian troops also have used U.S.-provided rocket artillery to destroy command posts and equipment staged beyond the front lines.
Replenishment of Ukraine’s air defenses will help protect its battered cities and infrastructure, which has come under relentless attack from Russian missiles and drones.
Russia meanwhile, aided by personnel replacements and its own equipment resupply, has made slow gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, consolidating around the town of Chasiv Yar. Capturing Chasiv Yar would allow Moscow’s forces to launch attacks from the high ground, threatening larger cities important to Ukraine’s defense and supply pipeline.
U.S. officials have said they foresee a grinding year ahead, in which Ukraine will seek to hold off Russian forces while preparing its own units to go back on offense in the future. They say Kyiv’s priorities include holding contested areas in the country’s north and east, maintaining its commercial thruway in the Black Sea, and diminishing Moscow’s ability to attack from the south by keeping the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula at risk.
While Moscow has reconstituted its forces and pressed Ukrainian positions along a number of fronts, its armies appear unable to break through in a meaningful way. For instance, Russian troops failed to seize on the initiative and push further into Ukrainian lines after capturing the key city of Avdiivka earlier this year, an administration official said.
Still, Kyiv’s battlefield setbacks, some of which are in part due to a gap in assistance, suggest modest expectations in Washington.
“I don’t think Ukraine is in a position where they are likely to regain significant territory in the next few months,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The package inventory highlights Ukraine’s urgent and enduring needs. The United States will provide Stinger air-defense munitions and another munitions, including anti-ship missiles, which the Ukrainians have tweaked to launch from Soviet systems. The Pentagon will also ship Bradley fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers and Humvees.
The resupply of anti-armor weapons will arrive at a particularly crucial time as Russian forces have made advances, and tactical adjustments, along the front lines. More vehicles have been used in assaults toward Ukrainian positions compared to six months ago, a deputy battalion commander near Chasiv Yar recently told The Washington Post.
The U.S. package includes TOW missiles, which can be used with fixed launchers or atop vehicles. It also includes Javelin antitank missiles and Swedish-made AT-4 antiarmor systems, which can help provide layered defenses against Russian armored incursions.
Other assistance includes small arms ammunition, including .50-caliber rounds to shoot down drones, support vehicles to haul equipment and night-vision devices, along with spare parts and training munitions.
The new U.S. aid package is among the largest the United States has provided to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in early 2022. Washington’s last weapons transfer, totaling $300 million, was scraped together in March after the Pentagon identified “unanticipated cost savings” in recent arms contracts.
The $61 billion for Ukraine that was newly authorized by Congress provides funding to the Defense Department to bundle and ship weapons, ammunition and equipment from existing U.S. military stocks, and to then replenish those inventories with new purchases from domestic companies. It also includes funds to directly buy weapons for Kyiv.
Missy Ryan contributed to this report.
