The US announces $300 million in military aid for Ukraine, the first package in 2024

The United States has announced the delivery of a new military aid package to Ukraine for $300 million in ammunition and spare parts. The package is much more modest than previous ones, when contributions were in the billions, but it is still symbolically important. It is the first so far this year, after a three-month pause, and is intended to send the message that it will not be the last; that, despite Republican candidate Donald Trump’s gestures toward canceling U.S. contributions, Washington remains committed to the defense of the country under attack. The announcement comes as the White House is trying to revive pressure on Congress this week to push through over $60 billion in assistance to its ally to repel the Russian invasion.

The new aid delivery will go primarily toward ammunition and rockets for the Himars anti-aircraft defense system, as National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, announced in a press conference at the White House. The shipment, he said, will be able to meet Ukraine’s “most urgent” needs on the battlefield for a couple of weeks. Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder pointed out that although it will allow Ukrainian forces to continue fighting for the next few days, it “is nowhere near enough, and the only way to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs is for Congress to swiftly pass the supplemental [aid package].”

The lack of new contributions has created an ammunition shortage that is hurting Ukrainian forces. “Action had to be taken immediately,” senior U.S. officials had indicated before the formal announcement of the new shipment. The money comes from spending cuts in Pentagon contracts, after the Biden administration warned in December that accounts for assistance to Ukraine had been zeroed out. Going forward, “this is not a sustainable way to support Ukraine,” Ryder said.

The aid package was unveiled immediately before Biden’s White House meeting with Poland’s president and prime minister, Andrzej Duda and Donald Tusk, respectively, to discuss assistance to Kiev. On Wednesday, the high representative for European foreign policy, Josep Borrell, will be in Washington to address the need to assist the besieged country; he will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and several congressmen.

At the beginning of the meeting with the Polish leaders, Biden reiterated that the new aid “is not enough. We must act before it literally is too late. Russia won’t stop at Ukraine.”

In turn, Duda reiterated his call for each NATO country to increase its defense investment to 3% of its GDP, which the United States considers unrealistic; Duda first made that case in an article published on Monday in The Washington Post. He observed that, in 2014, NATO’s members — the number of which grew last week with Sweden’s integration into the alliance — committed themselves to allocate 2% of their GDP to defense, but not all of them have reached that level of spending.

According to the Polish president, it would be ideal to reach at least 4% of GDP, so that NATO could adequately cope with any possible aggression from Russia in the future; since the beginning of the conflict, Moscow has increased its military investment to 30% of its economy: “A return to the status quo ante is not possible. Russia’s imperialistic ambitions and aggressive revisionism are pushing Moscow toward a direct confrontation with NATO, with the West and, ultimately, with the whole free world.”

The realization that, should Donald Trump win the November elections, he would cancel U.S. contributions to the Ukrainian war effort has contributed to the sense of urgency around aid to Ukraine. U.S. aid to Kyiv has exceeded €70 billion ($76,506,500,000) over the past two years.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the former president had communicated this position to him during their meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s mansion in Florida. Definitively closing the tap, he pointed out, would bring the war to an immediate end. “He will not give a penny into the Ukraine-Russia war and therefore the war will end,” Orban told state television late on Sunday. “As it is obvious that Ukraine on its own cannot stand on its feet,” Orbán told his country’s public television on Sunday.

On Capitol Hill, some Democrats and Republicans in favor of aid to Ukraine are examining ways to get the $95 billion Homeland Security bill passed; $61 billion would go to Kyiv and $14 billion would support Israel in its war in Gaza.

The bill passed the Senate in January after an eventful negotiation process. But it has stalled on arrival in the House of Representatives. There, hardline Republicans, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, are opposed to contributing more money to what they consider to be a war that has already gone on too long, with no end in sight, and lacks sufficient transparency in its financing.

Johnson has indicated that he does not intend to bring the bill to a floor vote, even though the measure has enough support to go forward with votes from the Democratic caucus and moderate Republicans.

One of the possibilities they are considering is a technical procedure that, if there are enough signatures, would allow the bill to be presented to the House plenary this week, bypassing Johnson.

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