In a final push ahead of the impending Trump Administration, the Biden White House is set to announce an additional $1.25 billion in military assistance to Ukraine.
The large package of aid includes a significant number of munitions, including for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and the HAWK air defense system. The package will also include Stinger missiles and 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds.
The officials are expected to make the announcement on Monday, the Associated Press reported.
The recent funding came after Biden earlier this month announced a $988 million aid package to Ukraine to ensure it “has the tools it needs to prevail in its fight against Russian aggression.”
“This administration has made its choice. And so has a bipartisan coalition in Congress. The next administration must make its own choice,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin previously said during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. “But, from this library, from this podium, I am confident that President Reagan would have stood on the side of Ukraine, American security and human freedom.”
The Biden administration has been committed to giving Ukraine as much aid as possible before Trump takes office in January.
During the campaign, President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance heavily criticized the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Trump also said he would end the war before even entering office without offering further details. Vance suggested earlier this year that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized and for a demilitarized zone to be established, a proposal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flatly rejected.
Since the campaign trial, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while at a ceremony commemorating the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Saturday after a devastating fire there in 2019.
This latest announcement marks the administration’s 22nd aid package through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
Earlier in December, House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a request by the administration for Congress to authorize $24 billion in additional funding.
“It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now,” Johnson previously said. “We have a newly elected president, and we’re going to wait and take the new commander in chief’s direction on all that. So, I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.”
