The United States will give $300 million in weapons to Ukraine despite a shortage of funds to replenish its arsenals

AP

The Pentagon will provide an emergency $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding some savings in its contracts, even though U.S. forces are in severe deficit and need at least $10 billion to replace the weapons it has taken from its arsenals to assist Kyiv in its defense against the Russian invasion, the White House announced on Tuesday.

This is the first security aid package from the Pentagon for Ukraine since December when it acknowledged that it had run out of funds to replenish its arsenals.

It was not until recent days that authorities publicly acknowledged that not only had they run out of funds to recover weapons, but they were carrying a deficit of $10 billion.

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The announcement comes at a time when Ukraine is running out of ammunition and attempts to give it more are stalled in Congress due to Republican resistance. U.S. officials have said for months that they will not be able to resume shipments to Ukraine until Congress approves replenishment funds, which are included in the stalled spending proposal.

Replenishment funds have allowed the Pentagon to take ammunition, anti-aircraft defense systems, and other weapons from its reserves under a presidential rule to send them to Ukraine and then make contracts to replace those weapons, which are necessary to maintain U.S. military readiness.

"When Russian troops advance and fire their weapons, Ukraine does not have the ammunition to respond," warned National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan when announcing the $300 million package.

The Pentagon also has a Security Assistance Initiative for Ukraine (known as USAI in English) that allows it to finance longer-term contracts with the industry to produce new weapons for Ukraine.

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Defense officials who spoke to reporters said the Pentagon achieved savings in some of those long-term contracts of approximately $300 million and, given the situation on the battlefield, decided to use them to send more weapons.

They also said that the savings basically offset the new package and keep the overdraft at $10 billion.

One of the defense officials who briefed the press said the package constituted a "one-time shipment" unless Congress approves a stalled spending bill that represents around $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine or other ways to save costs are found. Predictably, it would include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery projectiles, and armored systems, the official said.

Meanwhile, members of the Polish government are in Washington to pressure the United States to overcome its impasse on sending weapons to Ukraine at a crucial time in the war.

The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, met on Tuesday with Democratic and Republican leaders from both houses and will later meet with President Joe Biden.