KYIV, Ukraine – President Biden chided House Republicans Monday for failing to vote on the Senate-passed supplemental funding bill, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, ahead of their two-week break after Kyiv’s troops were forced to abandon the eastern town of Avdiivka to the Russians — citing, in part, a lack of ammunition.
“The way they’re walking away from the threat of Russia, the way they’re walking away from NATO, the way they’re walking away from meeting our obligations, it’s just shocking,” Biden told reporters after returning to the White House from his Delaware vacation home. “I mean, they’re wild. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
But while the White House has claimed for months that the US cannot send Ukraine any additional weapons without congressionally approved funding, the truth is that the president has the authority to send Kyiv billions more in desperately needed munitions, parts and military equipment — without input from Congress.
Biden still enjoys previously granted congressional authority to send roughly $4.4 billion worth of equipment from the Pentagon’s inventory, but he has refused to do so without securing the supplemental funding to backfill the US stockpile.
“We’ve seen the stories: Ukrainian soldiers out of artillery, units rationing ammunition, families worried that the next strike will plunge them into darkness,” Biden posted to X on Friday. “Our bipartisan national security bill would allow Ukraine to keep defending itself against Putin’s vicious onslaught.”
But questions over Biden’s decision to put the onus on the House have grown after Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced Sunday that her country would empty its stocks of artillery for Ukraine.
“They [Ukrainians] are asking us for ammunition now, artillery now,” Frederiksen said at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday. “From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery.”
The prime minister urged Western partners to follow suit by sending all ammunition not currently in use to Kyiv as the Ukraine war approaches its second anniversary and enters what has been described in local media as the most dangerous time for Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces..
“I’m sorry to say, friends, there are still ammunition stuck in Europe,” Frederiksen said. “… We have weapons, we have ammunitions, we have air defense that we don’t have to use ourselves at the moment that we should deliver to Ukraine.”
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The Danish head of government did not call on the US to do the same, but it’s no secret that Ukraine’s current predicament is in large part due to Washington’s nearly two-month hiatus in sending additional security assistance as Congress debates the supplemental funding bill.
US defense insiders have told The Post it would be unwise for Biden to send the extra $4.4 billion in weapons without the promise of restocking US materiel on the back end, particularly as American forces fight Iranian proxy groups in the Middle East, such as the Yemen-based Houthis who continue terrorizing commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The ensuing strain could force the House to pass the Senate-approved supplemental after it returns Feb. 28 – if only to ensure US national security is not further compromised.
But many in Ukraine worry that will be far too long to wait.
As one service member told The Post in Kyiv on Sunday: “A lot can happen in war over a short amount of time.”