BIDEN TO SEND ARMS WORTH US$300M

United States President Joe Biden has announced a US$300 million emergency weapons package to prop up Ukraine while Congress blocks further aid, as Poland’s leaders visited the White House to warn of the growing threat from Russia.

Biden said the stopgap shipment of missiles, shells and ammunition for Kyiv was “not nearly enough” and would run out in a couple of weeks, leaving Ukraine outgunned by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.

The Democrat urged Republicans to stop blocking his larger US$60 billion aid package for Ukraine, which has been caught up in a bitter partisan fight ahead of an election rematch against Donald Trump in November. “We must act before it literally is too late,” Biden said as he met Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the White House. “Russia won’t stop at Ukraine. Putin will keep going, putting Europe, the United States and the entire free world at risk,” Biden said.

The White House said the US$300 million package, the first since December, was made possible by using money that the Pentagon had saved on other purchases, thus allowing Biden to bypass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

But White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine’s battle was now in one of its most perilous phases since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Moscow has made a series of recent gains in eastern Ukraine after months of stalemate, sparking growing Western fears that it could be nearing a breakthrough as the war enters its third year.

Sullivan said the US$300 million emergency package was “nowhere near enough to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs and it will not prevent Ukraine from running out of ammunition in the weeks to come”.