On October 2, news outlet Politico reported that EU countries have provided Ukraine with all the weapons they can without undermining their own defense, according to a European official.
Kyiv is facing reductions to both weapons and cash support as “cracks appear” among its Western backers, the news outlet indicated.
“We cannot keep on giving from our own stockpiles,” the European source said. While there may still be strong political support, “we’ve given everything that will not endanger our own security.”
The aforementioned remarks were made to Politico as part of the outlet’s feature of the recent International Industries Defense Forum in Kyiv, during which Ukraine went on a “charm offensive directed at weapons-makers,” as revealed in the article.
Notably, the recent Kyiv event was part of the regime’s attempt to increase domestic military production. At the forum, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky suggested paying for his country’s proposed military overhaul with “confiscated Russian assets.” Germany’s Rheinmetall and the U.K.-based BAE have indicated plans to open production facilities in Ukraine. Kyiv’s aim is to become “an Israel in Europe — self-sufficient but with help from other countries,” Daniel Vajdich, a Washington-based advocate for Ukraine, disclosed to Politico.
As laid out in its projected budget, the Kyiv regime hopes to obtain at least $42.8 billion from international donors in 2024.
However, an anticipated dispute over the EU’s joint budget implied that “no one dares to predict anything” at this point, a diplomatic source told Politico. Another diplomat admitted that the “big elephant in the room” in Europe was the worry that Washington could ditch Ukraine.
On October 3, Politico reported that support for backing the Kyiv regime in fighting Russia was “showing more cracks than ever.”
External factors have hindered Ukraine’s efforts to obtain more arms and aid. For one, the U.S. Congress was unsuccessful last week in setting aside aid money in its stopgap budget. Besides, former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who pledged to cease military aid to Ukraine on his election platform, emerged victorious in elections last weekend. To complicate matters further, Kyiv is presently caught up in a diplomatic face-off with Poland over the issue of its grain exports.
Russian officials have repeatedly emphasized that it would regard foreign-funded weapons production sites in Ukraine as legitimate military targets. Denis Pushilin, the chief of the Donetsk People’s Republic, maintained Moscow’s stance during an interview on October 2.
On October 2, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in Kyiv that the bloc will contemplate a €5 billion military aid package for Ukraine for 2024. Nonetheless, Hungary has not backed down on its veto on the current €500 million “European Peace Facility” fund yet.
“I have proposed a new multi-annual bilateral allocation of the European Peace Facility, up to five billion for next year,” Borrell declared at a joint press conference with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. “I hope we can reach an agreement before the end of the year.”
Significantly, Borrell failed to broach the subject of present EPF funds, which Hungary has been withholding since May. As per a report by EuroNews, Borrell did not mention Budapest’s stance, saying only that the EU support for Kyiv would remain “in all dimensions.”
Hungary’s Péter Szijjártó was not among the foreign ministers dispatched by the 26 other members of EU for the meeting in Kyiv, meant as a display of backing for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Rather, a deputy represented Budapest, EuroNews reported.
“The EU remains united in its support for Ukraine,” Borrell reiterated at the press conference. “We remain united. I do not see any member state reneging in its commitment to support Ukraine with the tools we have.”
When questioned about details of EU support, Borrell replied that the EU would “do more of the same.”
Since February 2022, the EU has supplied Ukraine with over €25 billion ($26.4 billion) in military aid, while the total amount of military, financial, and humanitarian aid has amounted to €85 billion ($89.8 billion), Borrell acknowledged on October 1.
Moreover, the EU leader pledged that the bloc would continue backing Kyiv regardless of what happened in Washington, alluding to the U.S. Congress’s move on September 30 to pass a resolution preventing a government shutdown that did not mention new funding for Ukraine. After Democrats insisted that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had pledged to greenlight funding for Ukraine in a separate vote, McCarthy was sacked by critics from his own party.
“We cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” U.S. President Joe Biden insisted on October 1, calling for Democrats and Republicans to “get this done.”
Two officials revealed to Politico on October 2 that the Pentagon has about $1.6 billion left of the $25.9 billion Congress had set aside to help Ukraine, but is using the money to top up U.S. military stockpiles. An erstwhile “accounting error” has liberated another $5.4 billion worth of arms and ammunition from the U.S. arsenal, under a Presidential Drawdown authority.
Also, on October 4, CNN reported that Washington had discovered a legal way to deploy confiscated Iranian arms and ammunition to Kyiv, citing unidentified U.S. officials. Earlier this week, the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) already mobilized a million rounds of ammunition to the Ukrainians.
Based on the CNN article, these shipments “could help to alleviate some of the critical shortages facing the Ukrainian military as it awaits more money and equipment from the US and its allies.”
In a press release on October 4, CENTCOM declared that it had confirmed the deployment of the one million rounds to Ukraine two days earlier. Furthermore, the military added that the U.S. government “obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”
CENTCOM posited that the ammunition was on its way from Iran to the Houthi militia in Yemen, breaching the UN arms embargo, when the U.S. Navy seized it on December 9, 2022. Subsequently, American and French ships seized more arms and ammunition in the weeks that followed.
The declaration came amid concerns about further U.S. aid for Ukraine in fighting Russia.
In February, the Washington, D.C., think-tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) recommended deploying the seized arms to Ukraine, as a retaliation for Iran’s purported sale of drones to Russia. Nevertheless, it took the U.S. government many months to find a legal way to do so.
In July, the DOJ announced that it was seeking to claim “over 9,000 rifles, 284 machine guns, approximately 194 rocket launchers, over 70 anti-tank guided missiles, and over 700,000 rounds of ammunition” they alleged the IRGC had meant to send the Houthis.
Although Biden has urged that another Ukraine aid bill must pass, it is presently uncertain whether the U.S. Congress will do so, or when.
Long being slammed as de facto theft, civil-asset forfeiture is a practice that permits the U.S. government to seize property based on suspicions of criminal use.
