In the final year of President Joe Biden’s term, decisions on key shipments and weapons in Ukraine were stalled not just by months of congressional delays, but also by internal debates over escalation risks with Russia, as well as concerns over whether the U.S. stockpile was sufficient, an investigation has found. Adding to the confusion was a chaotic weapons-tracking system in which even the definition of “delivered” differed among the various U.S. military branches.
Delays were worst during the months it took Congress to pass $60 billion in supplemental aid for Ukraine, held up by opposition from Donald Trump and congressional Republicans amid Trump’s successful run for president.
But the jam continued well after the money was approved, according to a media analysis of official announcements, U.S. spending data and interviews with more than 40 Ukrainian and American officials, congressional aides and lawmakers. Most spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security deliberations.
Including the splashy April 2024 aid package, the Biden administration authorized a monthly average of about $558 million through September. The average value of shipments accelerated sharply after Trump won the presidential race, to levels not seen since mid-2023, the analysis found.
But despite the Biden team’s billing of the later announcements as a surge in aid from October through Inauguration Day, monthly aid from the U.S only reached the $1.1 billion monthly average established during the first two years of the war, the analysis found.
By November, just about half of the total dollar amount the U.S. had promised in 2024 from American stockpiles had been delivered to Ukraine, and only about 30% of promised armored vehicles had arrived by early December, according to two congressional aides, a U.S. official, and a lawmaker briefed on the data.
In the final 12 months of Biden’s term, Ukraine lost nearly all the land it regained in its largely inconclusive 2023 counteroffensive. As 2024 drew to a close, Russian forces were capturing a daily average of around 20 square kilometers, claiming nearly the equivalent of the area of Manhattan every three days, according to data compiled by the Institute for the Study of War.
Some analysts said there was no clear link between the delays in U.S. aid and Ukraine’s territorial losses: Kyiv’s inability to fix other challenges – issues of manpower, morale and how Ukraine uses the weapons it already has – were more to blame for the setbacks. Ukrainian officials had already privately told Americans they did not expect major offensives in 2024, a senior U.S. official said.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
