Department of Defense and State Department Requesting Additional Funding for Ukraine

By Tiffany Williams – 

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh on Thursday said the Department of Defense is “Beseeching Congress to pass the supplemental budget request that President Joe Biden initially made in August to continue to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs, said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, who held a news conference today.”

“The urgent need for this package to get approved and passed by Congress continues to grow,” she said. As a result, “we have been forced to meter out our support to Ukraine.”

The DOD, she said, “Used 95% of the initial $62.3 billion that it had in Ukraine supplemental resources, from when the full-scale invasion by Russia into Ukraine occurred in February 2022.”

All of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding has been expended, and only small amount of presidential drawdown authority funding is available, but packages to Ukraine have been getting smaller and smaller, she said.

“Another meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group will occur later this month,” she noted, adding that “Allies and partners are continuing to support Ukraine, as is the U.S.”

On Wednesday at a Press conference in Tokyo, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken “The G7 has led the world in galvanizing and sustaining support for Ukraine.”  

To put Ukraine on a solid foundation for next year, the U.S. must help Ukraine keep fighting to win back its territory.

It most also build a world-class military force to ensure maximum deterrence for the long term and make clear to President Vladimir Putin that he cannot and will not outlast Ukraine and he cannot and will not outlast all of Ukraine’s supporters.

Additionally it must kick-start economic recovery and growth and bring more hope and more opportunity to the Ukrainian people, and must accelerate the reform process to speed Ukraine’s path to the European Union and to attract investment.