Ramstein, Germany — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says the United States remains determined to provide Ukraine with the resources it needs to fight Russian aggression, even as a U.S. Congress has yet to approve new funding for Ukraine.
“The United States will not let Ukraine fail. This coalition will not let Ukraine fail, and the free world will not let Ukraine fail,” Austin said at the start of this month’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Germany.
This is Austin’s first international trip since he was hospitalized on January 1 due to complications from surgery to treat his prostate cancer in late December. The Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) brings together officials from more than 50 nations to coordinate their Ukraine efforts.
The U.S. has contributed about $44 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with allies and partners also committing more than $44 billion in that time frame.
But the U.S. military has run out of congressionally approved funds for replenishing its weapons stockpiles sent to Ukraine, and leadership in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has so far refused to bring new aid for Ukraine up for a vote.
“There isn’t a way that our allies can really combine forces to make up for the lack of U.S. support,” according to a senior defense official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity ahead of the UDCG.
Not only is the U.S. military out of funds for Ukraine, the Defense Department has a funding shortfall from its efforts to provide military support to Ukraine that will grow to least $12 billion by the end of the fiscal year without additional funding from Congress, according to officials. The Pentagon previously acknowledged a funding shortfall of about $10 billion for U.S. military weapons needed to replace those already sent to Ukraine.
In addition to the $10 billion shortage for weapons replenishment, U.S. Army Europe and Africa currently has overspent its budget by about $500 million as it continues to pay for the training of Ukrainians and other Ukraine support mission necessities out of pocket, Col. Martin O’Donnell, the public affairs director for the Army’s forces across those two continents, told VOA.
That shortfall will grow to at least $2 billion by the end of the fiscal year without supplemental funding from Congress, he added.
Ukrainian forces have continued to fight back against Russian forces in the east while inflicting considerable damage to Russian forces in the Black Sea and downing Russian warplanes. However, Moscow— with the help of North Korea and Iran — has drastically ramped up its defense production capacity, forcing Ukraine to retreat from some battles due to ammunition shortages, the senior defense official added.
“Ukraine is heavily outgunned on the battlefield. We’ve received reports of Ukrainian troops rationing or even running out of ammunition on the front lines,” said the official.
Austin on Tuesday thanked members of the group for digging deeper to get vital security assistance to Ukraine, praising the Czech Republic for recently procuring 800,000 artillery shells for Kyiv. He also highlighted Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden for their new contributions.
Last week, the United States announced its first new round of military aid for Ukraine since late December, in what defense officials called an “ad hoc” package made possible through U.S. Army procurement savings.
The military assistance package is valued at up to $300 million and will provide Ukraine with immediate air defense, artillery and anti-tank capabilities, along with more ammunition for HIMARS rocket launchers and 155-mm artillery rounds. But officials say it is unclear if there will be future procurement savings to produce another extraordinary package of aid.
“This is not a sustainable solution for Ukraine. We urgently need congressional approval of a national security supplemental,” the senior defense official said.
The emphasis on ammunition and air defense will likely be as strong as ever during this UDCG meeting. Officials say Ukraine’s forces need interceptors for a variety of their air defense systems, which they have been running out of as they try to defend against wave upon wave of attacks from Russia.
Coalition leadership group
To better organize how the UDCG provides Kyiv with military weapons and equipment, the group’s members have formed capability coalitions to identify ways to increase Kyiv’s efficiency and cut costs.
Defense officials say Secretary Austin will convene a meeting of the leads and co-leads of all the capability coalitions for the first time on Tuesday during a special coalition leadership group session.
Air Force capability is co-led by the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands. The armor capability is co-led by Poland and Italy. The artillery capability is co-led by France and the United States. De-mining is co-led by Lithuania and Iceland. Drone capability is co-led by Latvia and the United Kingdom. Information technology is co-led by Estonia and Luxembourg. Integrated air and missile defense capabilities are co-led by Germany and France, and maritime security is co-led by the United Kingdom and Norway.
Critics like Sean McFate, a professor at Syracuse University and author of “The New Rules of War,” told VOA the international community is putting its money into expensive military aid that falls short in modern warfare.
“It’s not conventional warfare that beat back Russia’s blitz. It was Ukrainian guerrilla warfare,” he said. “Ukraine was winning the unconventional fight. But then in fall of 2022, they decided to go conventional against Russia, which was strategically silly.”
McFate added that giving Ukraine more conventional war weapons was, in his view, “the strategic definition of insanity.”
Instead, he said Ukraine and its allies needed to think about unconventional ways where they can leverage their power to defeat Russia, such as guerilla operations and more direct actions deep inside Russia to build on the Russian population’s unfavorable opinions of the war.
“Use your conventional forces to hold the line, but don’t invest them to create an offensive which requires a lot more resources,” McFate told VOA.
“M1A1 Abram tanks and F-16 fighter jets … will win tactical victories on the battlefield, but we all know that you can win every battle, yet lose the war, because wars are won on the strategic level, not at the tactical level of warfare,” he said.
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