The U.S. Senate’s passing of a foreign aid bill providing Kyiv with $60.8 billion to fight Russian aggression could see the assistance arrive in Ukraine within days, although when its impact might be felt on the frontlines is less certain.
Voted through 79-18 in the Senate on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said he would sign the bill when it hits his desk on Wednesday “so we can begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine this week.”
Amid the wrangling over the package before it was voted through by the House of Representatives there were reports some of the U.S. aid was already close at hand to Ukraine and ready for swift deployment upon congressional approval—which is essential given Ukraine’s ammunition shortages and Russia’s battlefield momentum.
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John Foreman, a former British defense attaché to Moscow and Kyiv, told Newsweek that if Biden signed the bill first thing on Wednesday, “I would anticipate the first tranches of U.S. assistance to start arriving in Ukraine at the weekend for onward movement to the front.”
Politico reported that Defense Department officials had been working to put together a package of U.S. equipment including artillery and air defenses that can move quickly through the bureaucratic process once Biden signs the bill.
“We know that the U.S. has very considerable logistics capabilities and they have pre-positioned critically needed munitions, especially air defense and artillery, to send to Ukraine when authorization comes,” Foreman said.
He expected that U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will announce more details over U.S. deliveries during the next Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting on Friday.
Citing an unnamed source familiar with aid provision, CNN reported on Tuesday that some of the military equipment is already pre-positioned in storage facilities in Germany and Poland.
Those countries host some batches of artillery ammunition and Patriot interceptors, Gustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told Newsweek, and these “could be moved to Ukraine in a matter of days.”
“The bulk of deliveries will arrive by ship and then rail, which usually takes four weeks to arrive in Europe, and then some time to be transported to Ukraine,” he said.
Gressel believes that the speed of delivery of “critically important” Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV) and the M113 Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) “depends on the state of repairs these vehicles have undergone.”
“On artillery ammunition, U.S. firms have kept producing shells, they just weren’t delivered until the supplement passed. This will allow for a quick resumption of supplies,” he added.
Representative Bill Keating (D-MA) said during a bipartisan visit to Kyiv on Monday that the first batch of U.S. military aid will be delivered to Ukraine “sooner than anyone thinks is possible,” without giving further details.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CBS on April 21 that shipments of long-range missile systems such as ATACMS could be ready to be delivered within days.
Meanwhile, two unnamed American officials told Reuters the U.S. is preparing a military package for Ukraine worth $1 billion in initial aid delivery.
Newsweek has contacted the Pentagon for further comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.