The ammunition from the new aid package from the United States will last Ukrainian troops only for a few weeks. This was stated by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, CNN reports.
According to him, the package will provide Ukraine with only enough ammunition "to last for a few weeks and maybe only a few weeks."
"This is far from enough to meet Ukraine's needs on the battlefield, and it will not save Ukraine from running out of ammunition in the coming weeks. It goes without saying that this package does not supplant and should not delay the critical need to pass a bipartisan national security bill," Sullivan said.
As noted, the Pentagon has about $4 billion left to send weapons and equipment to Ukraine, received directly from the warehouses of the Ministry of Defense. However, the Pentagon did not want to use this funding, as there was no money left to replenish the US stockpile.
According to Sullivan, the new package was made possible "because of unforeseen cost savings in the contracts that the Department of Defense negotiated to replace equipment that we had already sent to Ukraine due to previous seizures."
At the same time, a senior US defense official told CNN that such savings are the result of "good negotiations" and "allocation of funding to different things."
The official cited one example of the ability to purchase 25 mm ammunition at a lower price than originally expected after negotiating a contract with a supplier. Such savings provided the Pentagon with an additional $300 million to fund the replenishment of aid to Ukraine.
However, the official made it clear that this is not a sustainable long-term solution to provide Ukraine with much-needed weapons, as Republican leaders in the House of Representatives continue to refuse to bring a bill to a vote that would provide additional military aid.
"We don't know if savings will come in the future and when. And we definitely cannot count on it as a way of doing business. We weren't in the deep end then, but now we are," the official added.
