The U.S. has announced a fresh aid package for Ukraine worth $725 million as President Joe Biden rushes to funnel resources to Kyiv in the final weeks of his administration.
The latest tranche of military aid includes ammunition for Ukrainian-operated High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems; deliveries of in-demand artillery shells, such as 155 mm; and missiles for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems operating in Ukraine.
Washington also plans to send Stinger missiles for man-portable air defense systems and nonpersistent land mines, designed to deactivate after a certain period of time, the Pentagon said.
Ukraine, which is heavily reliant on Western aid, is waiting to see how the U.S. pivots in its support for Kyiv when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office in the new year.
Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
The incoming Republican president has vowed to end military aid to Ukraine and has promised to end the war in 24 hours, without providing details on how he plans to do so.
The U.S. supplies about half of the military aid Kyiv receives. It has provided more than $60 billion since February 2022, when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon documents show. The U.S. government announced the $275 million aid package on November 20.
In late November, Reuters reported that the Biden administration was putting together an aid package worth about $725 million, citing two anonymous U.S. officials.
The fresh aid is “part of the surge in security assistance” that Biden announced in the fall as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Biden said on September 26 that he had instructed the Department of Defense to “allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine” by the end of his time in office. Trump’s inauguration, where he is set to be sworn into office, is scheduled for January 20.
The past few weeks have been marked by significant shifts in policy from the Biden administration, including green-lighting long-range Ukrainian strikes deep into Russia using U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System ballistic missiles, which Washington had long resisted approving for fear of Russian reprisal.
Last week, a U.S. defense official confirmed to Newsweek that the Biden administration had reversed its policy on antipersonnel land mines. Land mines can be effective military tools, but they are controversial among human rights groups as they can pose a long-term danger to civilians. They are banned by more than 150 countries—though the list includes neither Russia nor the U.S.
Throughout 2024, Russia has advanced in eastern Ukraine, claiming the former Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka in February and gaining territory toward the western border of the war-torn Donetsk region along several points of the front line.
Moscow has pushed west of the city of Bakhmut, in Toretsk to the southwest, and west of Avdiivka toward the vital defensive hub of Pokrovsk. But it has also advanced in Donetsk close to the border with the southern Zaporizhzhia region, seizing the bastion village of Vuhledar in early October.
In recent days, Russia has claimed several villages. On Sunday, the British government said that after the fall of Vuhledar, Moscow was now threatening the key town of Velyka Novosilka. The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank that tracks daily changes to the front line, recently gave a similar assessment.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its troops had captured two settlements in Donetsk in the previous 24 hours.
On Friday, Moscow said that over the past week, its forces had seized control of a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and three Donetsk settlements.
Ukraine is grappling with how to keep its military numbers up against a much larger military, despite Russia’s high casualties.
More Ukrainian soldiers deserted between January and the end of October this year than in the previous two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
A senior Washington administration official said last week that Kyiv should weigh up lowering its mobilization age to as young as 18 to quickly funnel more troops into its military. Ukraine previously lowered the age of draft-eligible men in April, from 27 to 25.
Dmytro Lytvyn, Zelensky’s communication adviser, said in a post to social media that it “doesn’t make sense” that Kyiv faced calls to lower its mobilization age, “presumably in order to draft more people, when we can see that previously announced equipment is not arriving on time.”
He added, “Because of these delays, Ukraine lacks weapons to equip already mobilized soldiers.”
Full List of New Military Aid to Ukraine Announced by the U.S.
- Munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS)
- Stinger missiles
- Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (c-UAS) munitions
- Ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
- 155 mm and 105 mm artillery ammunition
- Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
- Nonpersistent land mines
- Tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missiles
- Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems
- Small arms and ammunition
- Demolitions equipment and munitions
- Equipment to protect critical national infrastructure
- Spare parts, ancillary equipment, services, training and transportation
