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How the US can rush weapons to Ukraine once Congress finally passes new funding
- Thanks to a network of storage sites in the US and Europe, the Pentagon could get arms and ammunition to Kyiv’s forces within days
- A long-delayed US$61 billion in aid has cleared the House but still needs a vote in the Senate
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The Pentagon could get weapons moving to Ukraine within days once Congress passes a long-delayed aid bill. That’s because it has a network of storage sites in the United States and Europe that already hold the ammunition and air-defence components that Kyiv desperately needs.
Moving fast is critical, CIA Director Bill Burns said this past week, warning that without additional aid from the US, Ukraine could lose the war to Russia by the end of this year.
“We would like very much to be able to rush the security assistance in the volumes we think they need to be able to be successful,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said.
The House approved US$61 billion in funding for the war-torn country on Saturday after Speaker Mike Johnson pushed a larger foreign aid bill towards a vote despite threats from within his party that doing so could cost him his job. It still needs to clear the Senate.
After the House vote, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said he was grateful “for the decision that keeps history on the right track”. He said on X, formerly Twitter that the House action “will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger”.
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