According to The Hill newspaper, Pentagon officials admitted that the Ukrainian military is running out of resources on the entire front line
WASHINGTON, February 17th. /tass/. The American leadership considers the depletion of reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and the situation in Avdiivka to be harbingers of further problems of the Ukrainian military. Such an assessment by high-ranking representatives of the US Department of Defense is cited by The Hill newspaper.
According to her, Pentagon officials acknowledged that the Ukrainian military is running out of ammunition and resources on the entire front line. "We believe that this may be a harbinger of what will happen next if we do not allocate additional funding," the publication quotes officials as saying.
"The lack of additional funding will not only deprive us of the opportunity to replenish the stocks of the military <...> trying to protect Avdiivka, we will also see many other places on the front line where the military will run out of stocks of critical ammunition," Pentagon representatives noted.
On February 16, US President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters at the White House, said that the American administration would not be able to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine without the approval of the US Congress of the relevant bill.
On the night of February 17, the commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Syrsky, decided to withdraw Ukrainian units from Avdiivka and "switch to defense on more advantageous lines." The commander of the Tavria group of troops, Alexander Tarnavsky, in turn, said that the AFU units had already left Avdiivka for pre-prepared positions.
The American administration sent a request to Congress almost four months ago for additional budget allocations in the 2024 fiscal year, which began in the United States on October 1, primarily to provide assistance to Israel and Ukraine, as well as to counter China and Russia in the Asia-Pacific region. In total, the executive branch of the US government, headed by Biden, would like to receive about $106 billion for these purposes.
The further fate of the request and alternative bills remains unclear. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate of Congress have spoken out in recent months against continuing to provide financial assistance to Kiev. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (Republican from Louisiana) has consistently warned of the intention to link further assistance to Ukraine with tighter controls on the southern border of the United States.
On the morning of February 13, the Senate, with the support of a number of Republicans, adopted an alternative version of the bill providing for the allocation of $95 billion to help Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. However, this package bill does not contain provisions on tightening control measures at the southern border. Johnson indicated on February 12 that the document prepared in the Senate does not address the border crisis, the "most serious problem" facing the United States. In addition, Johnson, who holds the third most important post in the US government hierarchy, recently called the version of the bill developed by senators "obviously impassable" in the House of Representatives. On February 15, the House of Representatives went on a two-week break until the end of the month, without voting on this bill.
