The Biden administration on Thursday introduced a further $500 million of military aid to Ukraine in a safety package deal rushed out the door earlier than President-elect Trump takes workplace.
Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the ultimate time at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the place he made the announcement. Each officers used the event to induce the incoming Trump administration to proceed to help Kyiv’s struggle towards Russia.
“If Putin swallows Ukraine, his urge for food will solely develop,” Austin warned on the twenty fifth assembly of about 50 member nations who’ve joined forces to help Ukraine with an estimated $122 billion in weapons and help.
“If autocrats conclude that democracies will lose their nerve, give up their pursuits, and neglect their ideas, we are going to solely see extra land grabs. If tyrants be taught that aggression pays, we are going to solely invite much more aggression, chaos, and conflict.”
From left: German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin attend a gathering of the Ukraine Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Marijan Murat/dpa through AP)
The newest U.S. safety help to Ukraine contains missiles for fighter jets, help tools for F-16s, armored bridging methods, small arms and ammunition and different spare components and communications tools.
The weapons package deal is funded by the presidential drawdown authority (PDA), that means the weapons will come from U.S. stockpiles, expediting their supply to Ukraine.
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Austin introduced a brand new $500 million safety package deal for Ukraine. (Marijan Murat/dpa through AP)
Officers famous that is the Biden administration’s seventy-fourth tranche of apparatus to be offered from Defense Department inventories for Ukraine since August 2021.
This newest package deal leaves about $3.85 billion in funding to supply future arms shipments to Ukraine; if the Biden administration makes no additional bulletins, that stability will probably be accessible to Trump to ship if he chooses.
Zelensky pleaded for the following administration to proceed U.S. help for his nation’s defensive conflict towards Russian invaders.
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The ruins of town of Toretsk are within the Donetsk area, japanese Ukraine, on December 19, 2024. (Picture by Ukrinform/NurPhoto through Getty Pictures)
“We’ve come such a great distance that it might actually be loopy to drop the ball now and never preserve constructing on the protection coalitions we’ve created,” Zelenskyy stated. “It doesn’t matter what’s occurring on this planet, everybody needs to really feel certain that their nation won’t simply be erased of the map.”
Member nations of the coalition supporting Kyiv, together with the U.S., have ramped up weapons manufacturing for the reason that Ukraine conflict uncovered that stockpiles had been insufficient for a major conventional land war.
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The U.S. has offered about $66 billion of the overall support since February 2022 and has been in a position to ship most of that whole — between 80% and 90% — already to Ukraine.
“Retreat will solely present incentives for extra imperial aggression,” Austin stated Thursday. “And if we flinch, you’ll be able to depend on Putin to push additional and punch tougher. Ukraine’s survival is on the road. However so is the safety of Europe, america, and the world.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.
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