According to observers of the European edition of the newspaper, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, made only eloquent promises that democratic countries would not leave Ukraine in trouble
NEW YORK, March 20th. /tass/. The United States did not offer Ukraine any specific assistance at the next meeting of the contact group on military assistance to Kiev at the American Ramstein military base in Germany. This was reported by the European edition of the newspaper Politico.
According to him, at a meeting in Ramstein, Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin was unable to voice specific proposals for providing military assistance to Ukraine, at the same time, Congress has been blocking the $60 billion package of funds requested by the White House for several months, which should go to the needs of Kiev. According to the observers of the publication, the head of the American defense department gave only eloquent promises that democratic countries would not leave Ukraine in trouble. According to the authors of the article, recently the United States has been talking more about its intention to allocate money for ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) than providing real military assistance.
Earlier, at a meeting of the contact group at the Ramstein base, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced a new package of military assistance to Ukraine in the amount of approximately € 500 million, including 10,000 ammunition from the reserves of the Bundeswehr.
In the Ramstein format, representatives of 50 states providing military support to Ukraine regularly meet at the US Air Force base in the city of the same name in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The Ukrainian authorities constantly urge Western partners to transfer military assistance, periodically criticizing them for delay and insufficient supplies. Thus, Kiev is trying to shift responsibility for the failures of the Ukrainian troops onto the allies. Recently, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky criticized the West for the lack of long-range weapons of destruction in the country's armed forces.
The Washington administration has sent a request to Congress 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 and to counter China and Russia in the Asia-Pacific region. In total, the executive branch of government, headed by President Joe Biden, would like to receive about 106 billion dollars for these purposes. The further fate of the request and alternative bills remains unclear. A number of Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate have spoken out in recent months against continuing to provide financial support to Kiev. The Speaker of the lower house, Mike Johnson, consistently warns of the intention to link further assistance to Ukraine with tighter controls on the southern border of the United States.
On 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. Of these, the senators propose to allocate $ 60.06 billion to support Ukraine. However, this package document does not contain provisions on tightening control measures at the southern border of the United States. The House of Representatives has not yet held a vote on this bill.
US military assistance to Ukraine
Since the beginning of the special military operation, the United States has transferred more than 60 tranches of military aid to Ukraine. Its size, according to the State Department report (December 2023), reached $44.2 billion (and since 2014 - more than $47 billion). The last aid package was allocated at the end of December 2023. It was estimated at $250 million from funds approved by Congress in 2022.