
Russia likely to seek to expand its control beyond Avdiivka – British intelligence
February 20, 2024
The capture of Avdiivka by Moscow proved Ukraine’s critical shortage of arms – Associated Press
February 20, 2024While the issue of assistance to Ukraine remains unresolved, the Pentagon finds itself footing the bill for supporting Kiev.
To continue aiding the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), military leadership is diverting funds from other critical projects. However, these funds will soon run out.
The prospects for monetary assistance to Ukraine in Congress are highly uncertain, and the U.S. military has been forced to foot the bills for the hundreds of millions of dollars in support provided to Kiev in its armed conflict with Russia over recent months. Military leadership increasingly expresses concern, noting that without additional funding, they will have to divert funds from other critical projects to continue aiding Ukraine.
Since October 2023, the start of the new fiscal year, the Army has spent over $430 million on various purposes, including training Ukrainian military personnel, transporting military equipment, and supporting U.S. forces in Europe.
“In essence, we’re taking these funds from the Army,” said a high-ranking Army official to CNN.
Currently, the bills are being paid by the U.S. Army’s European and African Commands. Without an approved budget for the fiscal year 2024 and additional funding for Ukraine, this command has approximately $3 billion in operational expenses, totaling $5 billion. This includes not only actions related to assistance to Kiev, such as combat training and the delivery of weapons and equipment to Poland and Ukraine, but also other operations conducted by the command in Europe and Africa.
The Army command notes that if Congress does not approve a package of assistance for Ukraine in the coming months, they will have to make very difficult decisions, diverting funds from other, less critical projects, such as the construction of urgently needed barracks and incentivizing army recruitment in the face of record-low numbers. If the Army does not divert funds from other sources, the three-billion-dollar budget will run out by the end of May, not only for Ukraine but for other purposes as well, an Army official told CNN.
“If we don’t get the base budget, if we don’t approve the additional aid package to Ukraine, if the government shuts down, if we don’t get anything and nothing changes from today… we’ll run out of funds [for operational purposes and maintenance] in May,” said this military official. This includes conducting Army exercises and combat training in Europe and Africa, as well as transferring combat equipment to the theater. Contracts will not be paid on time, which could result in penalty sanctions.
“We’ll cease to exist” if funds aren’t found elsewhere in the Army budget, said this officer. Christine E. Wormuth, the U.S. Army Secretary, who is the senior civilian leader in the armed forces and makes final decisions on spending most of the budget, told CNN that the Army may face a situation of “Robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
“Every additional dollar matters, and it’s very important what I spend that dollar on. I constantly have to choose: build barracks or invest money in incentivizing army recruitment? Or spend them on exercises? Or invest in modernization? I don’t have spare money to give out donations,” Wormuth said.
“We were counting on getting this money back, most likely through additional funding,” she added, emphasizing the urgent need for funds.