Nations vow to keep backing Ukraine
The United States and European nations vowed on Tuesday to maintain military support for Ukraine, even though future U.S. aid remains snarled in Congress and modest donations of new weapons reflected an alliance with relatively little left to give as the war against Russia enters a critical stretch.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in Germany for the start of a meeting of about 50 governments that are supplying Ukraine’s forces, said that allies would “dig deeper to get vital security assistance to Ukraine.”
To that end, Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Berlin would send Ukraine 10,000 rounds of badly needed artillery shells, 100 armored infantry vehicles and transport equipment in a new $544 million infusion of support. The Finnish defense chief, Antti Häkkänen, announced a $32 million donation to help the Czech Republic buy 800,000 rounds of ammunition, including from beyond NATO-member militaries and manufacturers.
And Austin highlighted the new $300 million package of attack and air defense missiles, artillery rounds and armor systems that the United States pledged for Ukraine last week.
Yet Ukrainian forces could burn through much of the new aid within months, if not weeks. It is unlikely that the Biden administration will be able to send much more unless Republicans in the House of Representatives unlock a $60 billion emergency spending plan for additional weapons for Ukraine and to bolster armament production in the United States.
“We will have to deal with it, and we will deal with it,” Pistorius said on the sidelines of the meeting, held at Ramstein Air Base, a U.S. military hub in Germany, when asked about the blocked funding in Washington.
He said Germany was prepared to continue supporting Ukraine, and “I’m sure and I’m convinced the United States will, like it used to do before, too.”
Austin declared at the meeting’s start that “Ukraine’s battle remains one of the great causes of our time.” Later, he cast the war as “crucial to our own security” in remarks that seemed directed more toward critics in Congress than to the journalists before him in Germany.
“The United States would face grave new perils in a world where aggression and autocracy are on the march, and where tyrants are emboldened, and where dictators think that they can wipe democracy off the map,” Austin said.
“Today, Ukraine’s survival is in danger and America’s security is at risk,” he said. “They don’t have a day to waste, and we don’t have a day to spare either.”
On Monday, after meeting with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine ticked off a list of missiles, fighter jets and shells that he said were urgently needed on front lines.
In his own summary of the Monday meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Graham predicted that at least some U.S. assistance to Ukraine would arrive as loans, as former President Donald Trump has urged, instead of donated outright.
“I know Americans want to help our friends and allies, but I also believe we must consider our economic situation as we help others,” Graham said in a statement. He said he would also demand that the Biden administration send longer-range missiles to Ukraine, enabling its forces to strike Russian-held territory, and speed training for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 warplanes.