The Biden administration announced Thursday what could be the last tranche of military aid it will send to Ukraine, valued at about $500 million.
This aid package came less than two weeks before the administration will end and the second Trump administration will begin. As such, the Biden-led Pentagon has sought to provide Kyiv with whatever it could to improve its leverage ahead of peace negotiations that President-elect Donald Trump himself has previewed.
This aid package will include “additional missiles for Ukrainian air defense, more ammunition, more air-to-ground munitions, and other equipment to support Ukraine’s F-16s,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Thursday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany ahead of his last meeting with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
“As you all know, today marks my last Contact Group,” the secretary added. “And I am incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together. Over the past few years, we have moved heaven and earth to get Ukraine the security assistance that it needs. And together, we’ve committed more than 122 billion dollars’ worth of security assistance and expanded factories around the world.”
The United States has provided Ukraine with more than $65 billion in military aid since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine’s forces were expected to fall quickly after the invasion, but Russia has been forced to change its strategy and objectives after facing a much more resilient Ukrainian resistance.
With the expectation that the Trump administration will push for a negotiated settlement in the war, the Biden administration has sought to lock in certain contracts to ensure that U.S. aid to Ukraine and aid from European allies does not end entirely with the incoming administration.
“What we are focused on right now, especially at the Pentagon, is providing Ukraine with the defense capabilities that we can provide in the time we have, including putting things on contract that will be delivered throughout 2025 and into 2026 in order to build that capability so that Ukraine can be in the strongest possible position if it comes to a negotiation,” a senior defense official told reporters earlier this week.
Within the Ukraine Defense Contact Group are eight coalitions, each designated to focus on one aspect of Ukraine’s military capabilities, and each led by two NATO nations. The Coalition Leadership Group endorsed the eight roadmaps developed by the Capability Coalitions, which it announced Thursday, that will seek to aid Ukraine through 2027.
“With an eye to these capability targets for 2027, our countries plan to work closely with Ukraine to identify how to meet these benchmarks, balancing both Ukraine’s wartime and future force requirements, through our respective national donations, procurements, investments, and efforts to expand defense industrial base capacity, including by leveraging Ukraine’s domestic defense industry production and sustainment capabilities,” the group’s joint statement said.
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A second defense official said the incoming administration would be welcome to continue the contact group’s monthly meetings.
“The next administration is completely welcome and encouraged, even, to take the mantle of this 50-country-strong group and continue to drive and lead through it,” the second official explained. “And because of the multilateral work, because of the capability coalitions and all that we have done, it will endure in some capacity, in some form going forward, I believe, regardless of exactly how the next team does or doesn’t pursue it.”