Pentagon considers new plan to quickly ship weapons to Ukraine
The Biden administration is considering supplying Ukraine with desperately needed weapons and ammunition from Pentagon stockpiles even as the government runs out of money to replace that ammunition, according to two U.S. officials and a senior lawmaker.
Such a move would be a short-term measure to help tide over Ukrainian forces until Congress breaks a months-long deadlock and approves a larger military aid package to the country, the officials said.
But in considering whether to use Pentagon stockpiles again, the administration is weighing both political risks and questions about U.S. military preparedness.
“It’s something I know is on the table,” Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview. Mr. Reed, who recently returned from a trip to Ukraine, said he would support such an emergency measure in an “incremental use to buy time.”
The United States has provided Ukraine with about $44.2 billion in military aid since Russia launched its full-scale invasion two years ago.
About half that amount was sent under the so-called Presidential Withdrawal Authority. That allows the administration to immediately transfer Pentagon supplies to Ukraine, rather than waiting for the months or years it could take for defense contractors to start producing weapons under new contracts. The last shipment December.
The government still has the authority from Congress to pick up about $4 billion worth of weapons and ammunition. But in December, a separate fund that replenished ammunition donated by the United States to Ukraine was depleted. Pentagon and White House officials have since said they were unwilling to risk U.S. military preparedness to dip into Defense Department stockpiles without being able to replace them.
That thinking is changing, especially because of Ukraine’s increasingly dire situation on the battlefield. Ukrainian ground forces have been outgunned and run out of artillery, air defense weapons and other munitions, Western officials and analysts say. They may find themselves in their most precarious position since the first months of the war.
In mid-February, Ukraine withdrew from the eastern city of Avdiivka, its first major battlefield loss since Bakhmut’s fall last year. The Biden administration blamed the withdrawal on Congress’s inability to provide additional money to support Kiev’s war effort.
The Senate has passed an emergency aid bill, including $60.1 billion for Ukraine. But the measure faces an uncertain fate in the House of Representatives, where Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated he has no plans to vote on it.
Some officials fear that requesting the Defense Department inventories now would remove pressure on Congress to take action on the longer-term aid package.
It would also expose the administration to criticism from Republican opponents of aid to Ukraine that such a move without replenishing the Pentagon’s stock would hurt the United States at a time of hostilities in the Middle East and rising tensions with China.
At least for now, the government is not publicly discussing the withdrawal option CNN reported this earlier. Instead, it weighs on the $60.1 billion relief bill.
“We want to urge the House of Representatives to pass the additional national security package as quickly as possible,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in response to questions from The New York Times. “Ukraine needs the full resources of that package, and President Johnson should put it to a vote, where it would pass overwhelmingly, as there is no other way to fully meet Ukraine’s needs.”
Military officials say they are prepared to send artillery ammunition, air defense interceptors and other weapons to Ukraine as soon as they get the green light.
“We’re still meeting every day and we’re still tracking everything we need to ship as soon as it’s approved,” Lt. Gen. Leonard J. Kosinski, the logistics director for the Army Joint Staff, said Wednesday during a meeting. conference on Ukraine.