WASHINGTON: The United States will send a new military aid package for Ukraine worth $300 million, President Joe Biden’s administration said on Tuesday, the first such move in months as additional funds for Kyiv remain blocked by Republican leaders in Congress.
The White House has been scrambling to find ways to send more military assistance given the situation on the battlefield and the resistance to the funding from Republican hard-liners.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the funding was coming from unanticipated cost savings from Pentagon contracts and would be used for artillery rounds and munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
“This ammunition will keep Ukraine’s guns firing for a period, but only a short period,” Sullivan told reporters, adding it may only be helpful to Ukraine for a couple of weeks.
“It is nowhere near enough to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs and it will not prevent Ukraine from running out of ammunition,” Sullivan said.
The new weapons package was first reported by Reuters earlier on Tuesday.
Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder said the package included anti-aircraft missiles and artillery rounds. He said providing weapons to Ukraine through Pentagon contract savings was likely a one-time situation and not a sustainable way of funding Kyiv.
The last drawdown was in December 2023 when funds to replenish stocks fell to zero.
US officials have also looked at options for seizing some $285 billion in Russian assets immobilized in 2022 and using the money to pay for Ukraine weaponry.
The announcement came as Poland’s president and prime minister meet President Joe Biden at the White House later on Tuesday to talk about ways to bolster support for Ukraine.
“Financial support for Ukraine is cheap considering what the other support could be,” Polish President Andrzej Duda told reporters.
Using the funds that have been returned to replenish stocks opens a narrow window to allow more aid to be sent from existing stocks as the Biden administration waits for supplemental funding to be passed by lawmakers.
Biden, a Democrat, has backed military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, while his likely Republican opponent in the Nov. 5 US election, former President Donald Trump, has a more isolationist stance.
Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, an ally of Trump, has so far refused to call a vote on a bill that would provide $60 billion more for Ukraine.
The measure has passed the Democratic-run Senate, and both Republicans and Democrats in the House say it would pass if the chamber’s Republican leaders allowed a vote.
Leaders of US intelligence agencies pressed members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday to approve additional military assistance for Ukraine, saying it would not only boost Kyiv as it fights Russia but discourage Chinese aggression.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that the situation along the front of the country’s war with Russia was the best in three months, with Moscow’s troops no longer advancing after their capture last month of the eastern city of Avdiivka.
Zelensky, in an interview with France’s BFM television, said Ukraine had improved its strategic position despite shortages of weaponry, but suggested the situation could change again if new supplies were not forthcoming.
He said earlier that Russia is preparing a new offensive against Ukraine starting in late May or summer. Zelensky has said 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since February 2022.
Russia’s capture of Avdiivka gave the Kremlin’s forces breathing room in defending the Russian-held regional center of Donetsk, 20 km (12 miles) to the east.
Earlier this month, a top military commander said Ukrainian troops were forced to leave several settlements neighboring Avdiivka due to Russia’s continued offensive amid its own depleting stockpiles of munitions.
Denmark will provide a new military aid package including Caesar artillery systems and ammunition to Ukraine worth around 2.3 billion Danish crowns ($336.6 million), the Danish Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
European Union countries are set to agree on a new 5 billion-euro ($5.46 billion) top-up to a fund used to finance military shipments to Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing four officials briefed on the discussions.
US to send new weapons package worth $300 million for Ukraine
https://arab.news/gbv2x
US to send new weapons package worth $300 million for Ukraine
- US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the funding was coming from unanticipated cost savings from Pentagon contracts
- “This ammunition will keep Ukraine’s guns firing for a period, but only a short period”
Seven dead in small plane crash in western Mexico
- The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan
The aircraft, a Cessna 207, was flying from La Parota in the neighboring state of Michoacan.
Jalisco Civil Protection said via its social media that the crash site was in an area that was difficult to access.
Initial authorities on the scene “reported a preliminary count of seven people dead,” who haven’t been identified yet, according to the agency.
“A fire was extinguished and risk mitigation was carried out to prevent possible additional damage,” it added.
Authorities said they were awaiting the arrival of forensic investigators to remove the bodies and rule out the presence of additional victims.
Canada’s Trudeau losing support within his party: MPs
- Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya: Dozens of Liberal MPs want the prime minister to go
- Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025
OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s support within his own party appeared to falter further on Sunday, as former loyalists said growing numbers of Liberal caucus members wanted the premier to resign.
Trudeau has suffered a series of blows in recent days, spurred by the surprise resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who clashed with her boss over incoming US president Donald Trump’s threats to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.
Freeland’s exit, after nearly a decade at Trudeau’s side, marked the first open dissent against the prime minister from within his cabinet and has emboldened critics.
Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya told the public broadcaster CBC on Sunday that dozens of Liberal MPs wanted Trudeau to go.
Arya was interviewed a day after Liberal MPs from the province of Ontario held a meeting that addressed Trudeau’s future.
Multiple outlets, including the CBC and Toronto Star, reported that more than 50 of the 75 Ontario Liberals in parliament declared in Saturday’s meeting that they no longer supported Trudeau.
Asked about those reports, Arya said a “majority of the caucus thinks it is time for the prime minister to step aside.”
Anthony Housefather, a Liberal member of parliament from the province of Quebec, told the CBC on Sunday that “the prime minister needs to go.”
“We’re in an impossible situation if he stays,” Housefather said, arguing the party would be hammered in an election that amounted to a referendum on Trudeau’s leadership.
Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025 but expected much sooner. He changed a third of his cabinet on Friday.
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the small leftist New Democratic Party in parliament, declared Friday that he would join with other opposition parties to topple Trudeau’s minority government early next year.
The NDP had previously opposed a series of non-confidence votes brought by the opposition Conservatives.
A change in the party’s position would almost certainly bring down Trudeau’s government if another non-confidence vote is held.
Trudeau swept to power in 2015 and led the Liberals to two more ballot box victories in 2019 and 2021.
But he now trails his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, by 20 points in public opinion polls.
Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel
- Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency, Trump posts
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Katie Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration and is the wife of his incoming deputy chief of staff, as one of the first members of an advisory board to be led by billionaire allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that aims to drastically slash government spending, federal regulations and the federal workforce.
Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.
Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.
She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.
Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal
- Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday dismissed recent threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to retake control of the Panama Canal over complaints of “unfair” treatment of American ships.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a video posted to X.
Mulino’s public comments, though never mentioning Trump by name, come a day after the president-elect complained about the canal on his Truth Social platform.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he said.
Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!“
The Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.
Panama took full control in 1999.
Trump said that if Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
Mulino rejected Trump’s claims in his video message, though he also said he hopes to have “a good and respectful relationship” with the incoming administration.
“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”
Later on Sunday, Trump responded to Mulino’s dismissal, writing on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that!“
Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’
- Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.
