U.S. President Joe Biden.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President Joe Biden said Monday (December 30, 2024) that the United States will send nearly $2.5 billion more in weapons to Ukraine as his administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The package includes $1.25 billion in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the military to pull existing stock from its shelves and gets weapons to the battlefield faster. It also has $1.22 billion in longer-term weapons packages to be put on contract through the separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI.

Mr. Biden said all longer-term USAI funds have now been spent and pledged to use all the remaining drawdown money before leaving office.

“I’ve directed my administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.”

The new aid comes as Russia has launched a barrage of attacks against Ukraine’s power facilities in recent days, although Ukraine has said it intercepted a significant number of the missiles and drones. Russian and Ukrainian forces are also still in a bitter battle around the Russian border region of Kursk, where Moscow has sent thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim territory taken by Ukraine.

The Biden administration is pushing to get weapons into Ukraine to give Kyiv the strongest negotiating position possible before Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Mr. Trump has talked about getting some type of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia and has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Many U.S. and European leaders are concerned that Mr. Trump’s talk of a settlement might result in a poor deal for Ukraine, and they worry that he won’t provide Ukraine with all the weapons funding approved by Congress.

The weapons systems being pulled from existing stockpiles through this latest weapons package include counter-unmanned aerial systems munitions, air defense munitions, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, air-to-ground munitions, anti-armor systems, tube-launched missiles, fragmentation grenades, and other items and spare parts.

Including Monday’s announcement, the U.S. has provided more than $65 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will pay his second wartime visit to Washington next week, the White House announced Friday, in a bid to solidify the support of his country’s crucial backer which has shipped billions of dollars in aid to fight Russian invaders.

Zelensky will travel to the White House on Thursday for talks with President Joe Biden and also hold meetings at the U.S. Congress, where elements of the rival Republican Party are hesitant as Mr. Biden seeks to push through a major new package for Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader’s trip to Washington will come after meetings with other world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security advisor, said that the trip came at a “critical time” as Ukraine wages a counteroffensive against Russia.

Mr. Biden will reaffirm “his commitment to continuing to lead the world in supporting Ukraine as it defends its independence, its sovereignty and its territorial integrity,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters.

He contrasted Mr. Zelensky’s trip to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and sanctioned countries, from which Moscow is seeking weapons.

But doubts have also grown over the future of U.S. assistance as Congress approaches a September 30 deadline to approve funding just as the election season approaches.

Former president Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Mr. Biden next year, has lashed out at U.S. assistance, saying the money would be better spent at home and predicting an eventual triumph for Putin, for whom he has shown admiration.

Building ‘momentum’ for aid

But traditional Republicans including Senator Mitch McConnell, the party’s Senate leader, support assistance to Ukraine.

“We have confidence that there will be bipartisan support for this. I think President Zelensky does as well, and he wants to build momentum towards that as we head to the end of the month,” Mr. Sullivan said.

“Frankly, Republicans and Democrats both recognize that the United States cannot — in its own naked self-interest, let alone the moral obligations we have — walk away from Ukraine at this critical moment,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Ukraine launched a counter-offensive against entrenched Russian positions in June but progress has been limited, spurring the political debate in the West over support for Kyiv.

The United States has provided $43 billion in security assistance as Ukraine holds off Russian incursions.

Mr. Biden last month asked Congress for another $40 billion for Ukraine, both in emergency defense aid and economic and humanitarian assistance.

It will be Mr. Zelensky’s second visit to Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. In December, he secretly flew to the U.S. capital on his first international trip during the war, entering the White House in the military fatigues that have become his trademark.

Mr. Zelensky has felt increasingly confident in traveling overseas, from European allies to Saudi Arabia to Japan, where he met leaders at the Group of Seven summit in May.

Mr. Biden paid his own surprise visit to Kyiv in February, a highly unusual trip to a zone of active combat for the security-conscious White House.

Mr. Biden, who has sought to rebut criticism he is too old for the job, has started to air the campaign advertisements of his Kyiv visit, with the 80-year-old president strutting confidently in his sunglasses alongside Mr. Zelensky.