The Biden administration announced another package of military aid to Ukraine worth up to $300 million on Tuesday after months of warning there was no money left.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will rush about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, the White House said Tuesday, though the military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least $10 billion to replenish the weapons it pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its fight against Russia.
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 $10 billion overdrawn.
The announcement comes as Ukraine is running low on munitions and efforts to get fresh funds for weapons stalled in the House because of Republican opposition.
Congressional action
House Democrats and a small group of centrist Republicans on Tuesday launched separate long-shot efforts to force a vote on tens of billions of dollars in wartime aid for Ukraine, intensifying pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to take up the foreign funding package.
Democrats, as the minority in the House, began gathering signatures to force a floor vote on the Senate's $95 billion package of aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan through a "discharge petition" — a seldom-successful procedural tool that can circumvent the speaker's control over which bills come up for a vote.
Shortly after, a group of Republicans launched their own signature drive for a bill that would trim the package to $66 billion, mostly for military aid, and include border security provisions.
The moves underscored the stubborn impasse in Congress over the roughly $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine, with conservatives balking at providing more ammunition and weaponry for Kyiv.
Johnson resisted taking up the package passed by the Senate last month and insisted that the House work its own will on the matter. He suggested the House will turn to the package only after government funding is settled — and he still insists the money must be paired with policy changes at the U.S. border with Mexico.
At the same time, Ukrainian soldiers suffer from shortages of ammunition as U.S. supplies have been shut off in recent months.
"We have made every single opportunity to engage with the speaker on bringing the bill to the floor as a bipartisan piece of legislation," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. "Why not just bring it to the floor? You know, it would win overwhelmingly."
For either petition to trigger action in the House, it must be signed by a majority of lawmakers, or 218 members. With Republicans controlling the House 219-213, at least some Republicans would have to buck their leadership and sign the Democratic-backed petition to reach a majority. Some progressive Democrats are unlikely to sign on because the legislation includes military aid for Israel.
"What Israel is doing — and I think the president is starting to express this is as well — is absolutely unacceptable," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the House Progressive Caucus. "(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu cannot be doing that with United States aid. We are killing people in Gaza right now."
Meanwhile, Johnson faces pressure from within his own conference to take up aid for Ukraine, even as a contingent of hard-line conservatives have vocally resisted sending more military aid to Ukraine.
A group of centrist Republicans began gathering signatures for their own discharge petition effort. Their bill would provide $48 billion for Ukraine, mostly by sending ammunition and weaponry. It would also for one year require that asylum seekers remain in Mexico while their cases are decided.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, led that effort. It gained support from six Republicans and three Democrats on Tuesday.
A separate group of House Republicans are also trying to draft their own version of a foreign aid package in hopes of breaking the stalemate. Their version also trims back the foreign aid to Ukraine so that it is only for the country's military, not for the functioning of its government.
War developments
Ukrainian long-range drones smashed into two oil facilities deep inside Russia on Tuesday, officials said, while an armed incursion claimed by Ukraine-based Russian opponents of the Kremlin unnerved a border region just days before Russia’s presidential election.
The attack by waves of drones across eight regions of Russia displayed Kyiv’s expanding technological capacity as the war extends into its third year. The cross-border ground assault also weakened President Vladimir Putin’s argument that life in Russia has been unaffected by the war, though he remains all but certain to win another six-year term after eliminating all opposition.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Moscow’s military and security forces killed 234 fighters while thwarting the incursion. In a statement, the ministry blamed the attack on the “Kyiv regime” and “Ukraine’s terrorist formations,” insisting that the Russian military and border forces were able to stop the attackers and avert a cross-border raid. It also said the attackers lost seven tanks and five armored vehicles.
The reports of border fighting earlier on Tuesday were murky, and it was impossible to ascertain with any certainty what was unfolding in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions. Cross-border attacks in the area have occurred sporadically since the war began and have been the subject of claims and counterclaims, as well as disinformation and propaganda.
Ukraine endures a second year of war with scenes of grief, suffering and also joy
Ukrainian soldiers prepare to fire a multiple launch rocket system March 5 toward Russian positions at the front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine.