WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he was promptly sending much-needed weapons to Ukraine as he signed a $95 billion war aid law that also provided assistance for Israel, Taiwan, and other global hot spots.
The announcement signifies the end of the lengthy, difficult struggle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine. Biden pledged that U.S. weapons delivery would begin heading to Ukraine “in the next few hours.”
“We rose to the moment, we came together, and we got it done,” Biden said at a White House event to announce the bill signing. “Now we need to move fast, and we are.”
However, the Biden administration's efforts to help Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion have been significantly affected during the funding deadlock that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine. Even with a surge of new weapons and ammunition, it's unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.
Biden promptly authorized sending Ukraine $1 billion in military assistance, the initial payment from the approximately $61 billion allocated for Ukraine. The package consists of air defense capabilities, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, and other weapons to support Ukrainian forces, whose morale has plummeted as Russian President Vladimir Putin has achieved victory after victory.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has started using long-range ballistic missiles provided in secret by the United States for the first time, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials confirmed on Wednesday. The U.S. is supplying more of the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in the new military package, according to an official who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Nonetheless, in the long term, it remains uncertain whether Ukraine, after months of losses and extensive damage to its infrastructure, can make enough progress to maintain American political support before using up the latest influx of money.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that even as new U.S. aid arrives in Ukraine, it's possible that Russia will continue to make tactical gains in the weeks ahead.
“The fact is that it’s going to take some time for us to dig out of the hole that was created by six months of delay,” he said.
Nestled in the law is a provision that gives TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, nine months to sell it or face a nationwide prohibition in the United States. The administration and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have described the social media site as a growing national security concern, which ByteDance denies.
The law includes about $26 billion in aid for Israel and about $1 billion in humanitarian relief for Palestinians in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war persists. Biden stated that Israel must ensure that the humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the bill reaches the Hamas-controlled territory “without delay.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., postponed the assistance package for a long time because members of his party’s extreme right wing, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, threatened to remove him from his position if he allowed a vote to send more help to Ukraine. Those threats continue.
Donald Trump, the expected Republican presidential nominee, has expressed dissatisfaction with European allies not doing enough for Ukraine. While the former president didn't fully support the funding package, his attitude has changed recently, recognizing the importance of Ukraine’s survival to the United States.
Many European leaders have been worried for a long time that a second Trump term would lead to reduced U.S. support for Ukraine and NATO. European concerns increased in February when Trump, in a campaign speech, cautioned NATO allies that he would support Russia in taking action against countries that didn't meet defense spending goals if he returns to the White House.
This was a crucial moment in the discussion about Ukraine spending. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg swiftly criticized Trump for putting “American and European soldiers at increased risk.” But in reality, the White House started working to obtain additional funding for Ukraine months earlier.
Biden, the day after coming back from a trip to Tel Aviv following Hamas militants’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, used a prime-time speech to advocate for the funding.
At the time, the House was in disarray because the Republican majority couldn't choose a speaker to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who had been removed a few weeks earlier at the urging of discontented legislators on the right.
Far-right Republicans have strongly opposed providing more money for Ukraine, with no apparent end in sight to the war. In August, Biden requested over $20 billion to continue providing aid to Ukraine, but the money was removed from a crucial spending bill.
By late October, Republicans finally chose Johnson, a low-profile Louisiana Republican with unclear views on Ukraine, to be the next speaker. During his congratulatory call with Johnson, Biden encouraged him to quickly pass Ukraine aid and initiated a months-long, mostly behind-the-scenes effort to bring the issue to a vote.
During private conversations with Johnson, Biden and White House officials emphasized the implications for Europe if Ukraine were to fall to Russia. Acting on Biden's explicit instructions, White House officials also refrained from directly criticizing Johnson over the delayed aid.
Biden praised Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying in the end they “stepped up and did the right thing.”
“History will remember this moment,” he said.
During frustrating moments in the negotiations, Biden instructed his aides to “just keep talking, keep working,” as per a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss internal talks.
So they did. In a daily meeting led by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, the president’s top aides would brainstorm possible ways to better present the case about Ukraine’s dire situation in the absence of aid.
The White House also tried to please Johnson by meeting his various requests. For example, administration officials, at the speaker’s request, briefed Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., two conservatives who were persistent antagonists of Johnson.
In public, the administration used a strategy of downplaying intelligence that showed Russia’s efforts to strengthen its ties with U.S. adversaries China, North Korea and Iran in order to support Moscow’s defense industrial complex and evade U.S. and European sanctions.
The $61 billion can assist Ukrainian forces in the short term, but Kyiv will need much more for a long-lasting fight, according to military experts.
According to Bradley Bowman, a defense strategy and policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, realistic goals for Ukraine — and its allies — in the coming months include avoiding the loss of major cities, slowing Russia’s momentum and providing additional weaponry to Kyiv that could help them go on the offensive in 2025.
Bowman said, “I think Ukrainian success is not guaranteed, but Russian success is if we stop supporting Ukraine.”
Biden expressed regret that the package did not include funding to strengthen U.S. border security. The White House had suggested including provisions in the package that it said would have helped reduce the number of migrants and asylum seekers coming to the U.S. However, Republicans rejected the proposal at the urging of Trump, who did not want to give Biden the win on an issue that’s been a challenge for the Democratic administration.
