The United States told how to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine. Europe may be forced to pay for this

The administration of US President Joe Biden is trying to figure out how to continue supplying arms to Ukraine amid the inability of Congress to agree on funding for Kyiv from the fall of 2023. This is reported by The New York Times (NYT) with reference to officials from the administration of the American leader.

Even as Washington acknowledges that there is nothing on the horizon that can match the power of the US Congress' new $60 billion in military support for Ukraine, the government is exploring options to continue supplying arms to Kyiv.

Thus, Washington is considering the possibility of a comprehensive arms exchange with third countries, which could occur by analogy with how Japan and South Korea decided to act after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine. Both countries officially refused to export weapons directly to Kyiv, but they transferred them to the United States to compensate for the supply of weapons from American arsenals to Ukraine.

The EC admitted that the ammunition transferred to Ukraine would not be enough

As the NYT notes, Europe is not capable of making big changes in the issue of supplying drones and missiles to Ukraine. Germany remains reluctant to transfer Taurus long-range air-to-surface cruise missiles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, fearing that Kyiv will use them to strike Russia. After Bundestag deputies voted against the transfer of Taurus to Ukraine, the head of the German Defense Ministry, Boris Pistorius, said that he was tired of the ongoing debate in the country over their supplies.

Also, as the NYT writes, Europe clearly does not have the ability to independently increase the amount of ammunition for transfer to Kyiv. In early February, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told, that by March 2024 more than half a million shells will be delivered to Ukraine, and by the end of the year the number of transferred ammunition will exceed one million. However, she emphasized that “this is clearly not enough.”

According to her, the EU should not only speed up the delivery of ammunition to Ukraine, but also consider Ukraine’s defense capability as part of European defense capability. “We must think of Ukraine's defense industry as part of our own defense industry. (…) Ukraine is a future member of our European Union, so it should become much closer to us in the field of defense,” she emphasized.

The previously allocated EU assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 50 billion was called insufficient

According to Ursula von der Leyen, in the same month Kyiv will receive the first financial funds from a fund of 50 billion euros.

However, the head of the Budget Committee of the European Parliament, Johan Van Overtveldt, among other European officials, believes that financial assistance for Ukraine from the EU in the amount of 50 billion euros is nothing without parallel assistance from the United States. As Politico experts explained, this assistance will be paid over several years, and not at once, and besides, Kyiv’s military needs are much higher than Europe can satisfy.

On February 1, the EU summit approved a long-term assistance program for Ukraine worth 50 billion euros. The new support package was approved by representatives of 27 member countries of the association. Meanwhile, in the United States this assistance was considered useless. University of Chicago professor and international political scientist John Mearsheimer expressed the opinion that it will not in any way affect Russia’s successes during the special operation and the situation will continue to develop in Moscow’s favor.