US unable to continue Ukraine arms support without Congressional vote, says White House
The U.S. will not be able to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine until Congress approves a request for additional funding, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby stated during a briefing on Jan. 3.
Kirby's comment was in response to a journalist's question about whether the supply of weapons to Ukraine would stop after the last package is exhausted.
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“They’d have to [stop],” said Kirby.
“The President signed out the last security assistance package for which we had replenishment authority funds. That’s it. We need the supplemental passed so that we can provide additional security assistance to Ukraine.”
Kirby also explained that there is a delay between the announcement of supplies and the actual delivery of weapons to Ukraine, so the last package is expected to arrive in the “coming days and weeks.”
Read also: White House finds no evidence of widespread corruption or misuse of US-supplied weapons in Ukraine
“But in terms of the kinds of security assistance that we’ve been able to provide and the frequency with which we have provided it — every two weeks — that ended on the 27th [Dec.] when we submitted our last one for the year, the last one that we had funding applied to,” Kirby added.
The U.S. announced a new military aid package for Ukraine, worth $250 million, on Dec. 27.
A bill on financing aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan did not pass a procedural vote in the U.S. Senate on Dec. 6 due to Republican demands for changes to U.S. border policy.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, urged on Dec. 24 to “pray and hope” that Congress would approve the aid package for Ukraine at the beginning of Jan. 2024.
However, Congress went on Christmas holidays without resolving the issue of aid to Ukraine.
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