Biden Administration Running Out of Time to Send Allocated Aid to Ukraine
The Biden administration is unlikely to spend all of the remaining $5.6 billion that Congress has allocated to send weapons and other military help to Ukraine, a senior Defense Department official said on Tuesday.
The administration plans to announce additional aid for Ukraine before the end of the year. But it would be difficult to rush the amount that is left to the battlefield before the Trump administration begins next month, the official told reporters at a briefing.
Another senior military official said at the same briefing that Ukrainian troops had killed or wounded “several hundred” North Korean soldiers who were sent to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Russia has amassed a combined force of 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops to push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk border region of Russia, according to the Pentagon.
The official said that the North Koreans were not battle-hardened and that Ukraine had struck their command and control sites as well as infantry positions.
Both officials were authorized to speak to reporters only on the condition of anonymity.
Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said earlier this week that the Defense Department had seen “indications” that the North Korean forces sent to Russia had suffered their first casualties.
The first official said on Tuesday that the administration would use some of the $5.6 billion, all of which remains in presidential drawdown authority. That allows the administration to transfer Pentagon stocks to Ukraine instead of waiting the months or years it can take for defense contractors to manufacture weapons under new contracts.
“We will continue to do drawdown packages for the remainder of this administration,” she said. “But $5.6 billion is a substantial amount of authority, so I would certainly anticipate that there could be remaining authority that would transition and be available for the next administration to use.”
The first official said Tuesday that the administration would probably use all of the $1.2 billion that remains in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows Kyiv to purchase goods directly from the defense industry.
Whether the Trump administration uses that money to help Ukraine is a big question. President-elect Donald J. Trump has been deeply skeptical about American support for Ukraine and has vowed to end the war quickly. He has not said how he might so do, but Vice President-elect JD Vance has outlined a plan that would allow Russia to keep the Ukrainian territory it has seized.
As its military loses ground in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv has repeatedly tried to gain Mr. Trump’s support for additional aid.