Although Congress has yet to pass a defence budget, the US Army is now putting forward a bill to train Ukrainians, VOA informs.
The US military has been forced to resort to its own funding to finance US training of Ukrainian troops. The strategy could leave the Army facing a funding shortfall in Europe as the war in Ukraine enters its third year. Col. Martin O’Donnell, the public affairs director for the Army’s forces, stated:
US Army Europe and Africa [USAREUR-AF] is currently paying to fund Ukraine training ourselves.
USAREUR-AF currently has about $3 billion to pay $5 billion in operating expenses, excluding the congressionally approved 2024 budget and additional funding for Ukraine, two US Army officials stated.
“If nothing changes, and we do not receive additional money, we will run out of funding for everything – support to Ukraine, operations and exercises in Europe and Africa – at the start of summer.”
The Senate recently approved a $95 billion foreign aid bill, including $60 billion to support Ukraine. However, the Republican leadership in the House has so far refused to bring the bill to a vote. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh argued that congressional “inaction” would force the Army and others to make “tough decisions” that could “impact the entire force.”
We can’t just turn our backs on those Ukrainian soldiers that are coming, whether it’s in Europe or to the United States to train, to go back out there and fight this war.
According to the army spokesperson, the US has just completed the training of a Ukrainian battalion in Germany and is currently training about 150 Ukrainians at Grafenwoehr Training Area.
Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba claimed that Ukraine would not have lost the town of Avdiivka, from which Kyiv’s troops recently withdrew, if the country “had received all the artillery ammunition that we needed to defend it.”
The Pentagon has been operating without a full budget for five months now, with no new round of military aid to Ukraine since late December.
