The Department of Defense announced a new military aid package for Ukraine valued at $1 billion on Wednesday, shortly after President Joe Biden signed a new supplemental bill into law.
This aid package, which is the 56th tranche of equipment to be provided to Ukraine from the U.S. military’s inventories since August 2021, is designed to support Ukraine’s most urgent needs, which include air defense and artillery.
“It was a difficult path [to get the bill passed],” the president said. “It should have been easier and it should have gotten there sooner. But in the end, we did what America always does. We rose to the moment, came together, and we got it done.”
The package includes RIM-7 and AIM-9M missiles for air defense, stinger anti-aircraft missiles, small arms and ammunition, 155 mm artillery rounds, and additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, among other things.
The Pentagon is “poised and ready to support Ukraine with additional security assistance,” spokesman Patrick Ryder said on Monday, adding, “We’ve been in constant contact throughout with Ukraine, our allies and partners on what those needs are, and so we’ll certainly keep you updated.”
The passage of this national security supplemental bill, which provides roughly $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, was months in the making. The administration has sought to get aid for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel passed for several months, but faced strong resistance from a pocket of Republicans who argued against providing aid for Ukraine.
In that time, Ukraine faced the effects of the lack of U.S. aid in 2024, and they have been forced to ration ammunition and withdraw from areas due to the lack of equipment.
“It’s a race against time,” Oleksandr Merezhko, who chairs the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament, recently told the Washington Examiner. “I hope that we’ll start receiving at least artillery shells within weeks … like two weeks, or three weeks.”
Ukrainian forces expect that Russia will carry out another offensive push in the coming weeks.
The legislation included a provision that opens the door for Washington to send longer-range missiles to Ukraine, which they have opted not to send to date.
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“The delayed ATACMS delivery has cost unnecessary lives and prolonged the war. While this legislation could push pivotal momentum toward securing victory, it should not have required an act of Congress for President Biden to deliver the deep-strike missiles to Ukraine. It is past time for the commander in chief to end the ‘drip-drip-drip’ policies toward our Ukrainian friends, and other allies such as Israel, that are fending off aggression,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.
The U.S. has already provided Ukraine with shorter-range versions of the ATACMS, but that hasn’t stopped Ukrainian officials from seeking the newer ones that have a longer range. The newer missiles would further enable Kyiv’s ability to carry out attacks on Russian airfields, fuel depots, and weapons storage sites, which the U.S. has said it does not support.