Russia-Ukraine war: Pentagon to give Kyiv US$300m in weapons even as it lacks funds to replenish US stockpile

Senior US defence officials said that the Pentagon will rush about US$300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts. Photo / AP

The Pentagon will rush about US$300 million ($487m) in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts.

That’s even though the United States military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least US$10 billion to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its desperate fight against Russia, the White House announced today NZT.

It’s the Pentagon’s first announced security package for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it was out of replenishment funds. It wasn’t until recent days that officials publicly acknowledged they weren’t just out of replenishment funds, but US$10b overdrawn.

The announcement comes as Ukraine is running dangerously low on munitions and efforts to get fresh funds for weapons have stalled in the House of Representatives because of Republican opposition.

US officials have insisted for months that the US wouldn’t be able to resume weapons deliveries until Congress provided the additional replenishment funds, which are part of the stalled supplemental spending bill.

The replenishment funds have allowed the Pentagon to pull existing munitions, air defence systems and other weapons from its reserve inventories under presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, to send to Ukraine and then order replacement weapons, which are needed to maintain US military readiness.

“When Russian troops advance and its guns fire, Ukraine does not have enough ammunition to fire back,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in announcing the US$300m in additional aid.

The Pentagon also has had a separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, which has allowed it to fund longer-term contracts with industry to produce new weapons for Ukraine.

Senior defence officials who briefed reporters said the Pentagon was able to get cost savings in some of those longer-term contracts of roughly US$300m and, given the battlefield situation, decided to use those savings to go ahead and send more weapons. The officials said the cost savings basically offset the new package and keep the replenishment spending underwater at US$10b.

One of the officials said the package represented a “one-time shot” — unless Congress passes the supplemental spending bill, which includes roughly US$60b in military aid for Ukraine, or more cost savings are found. It is expected to include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery rounds and armour systems, the official said.

The aid announcement comes as Polish leaders are in Washington to press the US to break its impasse over replenishing funds for Ukraine at a critical moment in the war. Polish President Andrzej Duda met Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate and was to meet President Joe Biden later in the day.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has so far refused to bring the US$95b package, which includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, to the floor. Seeking to put pressure on him, House Democrats have launched a long-shot effort to force a vote through a discharge petition. The seldom-successful procedure would require support from a majority of lawmakers, or 218 members, to move the aid package to a vote.

Ukraine’s situation has become more dire, with units on the front line rationing munitions as they face a vastly better supplied Russian force. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly implored Congress for help, but the House Republican leadership says any aid must first address US border security needs.

Pentagon officials said yesterday during budget briefing talks they were counting on the supplemental to cover the US$10b replenishment hole.

“If we don’t get the US$10b we would have to find other means,” Deputy Defence Secretary Kathleen Hicks said. “Right now we’re very much focused on the need for that supplemental.”

This is the second time in less than nine months that the Pentagon has “found” money to use for additional weapons shipments to Ukraine. Last June, defence officials said they had overestimated the value of the weapons the US had sent to Ukraine by US$6.2b over the past two years.

At the time, Pentagon officials said a review found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. The discovery resulted in a surplus that the department used for presidential drawdown packages until the end of December.

The US has committed more than US$44.9b in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including more than US$44.2b since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022.

The Pentagon is US$10b overdrawn in the replenishment account in part due to inflationary pressures, and in part because the new systems the Pentagon is seeking to replace the old systems with cost more, such as the upcoming Precision Strike Missile, which the Army is buying to replace the long-range Army Tactical Missile System.

The vast majority of those munitions have come from Army stockpiles due to the nature of the conventional land war in Ukraine.

The months without further shipments of US support have hurt operations, and Ukrainian troops withdrew from the eastern city of Avdiivka last month, where outnumbered defenders had withheld a Russian assault for four months.

CIA Director William Burns told Congress that entire Ukrainian units have told him in recent days of being down to their last few dozen artillery shells and other ammunition. Burns called the retreat from Avdiivka a failure of ammunition resupply, not a failure of Ukrainian will.