US president Joe Biden appears set to try and rush billions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine before his successor Donald Trump is inaugurated next January.
A senior administration official, speaking after Mr Trump won a comprehensive victory in the US election, said the White House “plans to push forward ... to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible” to fight off Russia’s invasion over the next few months.
The comments came amid fears that a second Trump administration could prove costly for Ukraine, with the president-elect repeatedly lamenting the tens of billions the US has sent in aid to Ukraine – with Washington being Kyiv’s largest donor of military support. Mr Trump has also claimed he could solve the war in just 24 hours. Sources close to Mr Trump have since suggested that such a plan could involve forcing Ukraine to give up territory currently occupied by Russia, something Kyiv has said it will not do.
As Vladimir Putin’s forces continue to make slow but steady advances in eastern Ukraine, and with the possibility of a Trump administration declining to send more help looming, the need from Kyiv for more aid from the US has become more urgent.
Mr Biden, a much more outspoken advocate for Ukraine than Mr Trump, and who has stated publicly that he would not force Kyiv to the negotiating table, rather let such talks be led by them, has passed five substantive aid packages for Ukraine while in the White House, totalling around $175 billion (£135bn).
Roughly $9bn of those bills remains to be sent. Of the latest weapons transfer authority passed in April, $4.3 billion remains, in addition to $2.8 billion worth of transfers lawmakers approved in previous spending measures and $2 billion in funding for the purchase of new weapons from industry.
But it is unclear when that aid could arrive; it is doubtful much will make it before Mr Trump is inaugurated.
In October, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky complained that only 10 per cent of the pledged aid had actually arrived in Ukraine, owing to issues with bureaucracy and logistics, despite most of it being promised in 2022.
Previous lulls in US aid have proved costly. When the Republican-held House of Representatives, which is the lower chamber of Congress, blocked for eight months a $61.3bn package for Ukraine over concerns that more money should be directed to securing the US border with Mexico, Russia took the major city of Adviivka in Donetsk, having fought for months to no avail.
They went on to regain the initiative across the entire frontline, and have seized hundreds of square miles of Donetsk since.
Faced with the future of a Republican president, a Republican-controlled Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, and possibly a Republican-retained House, Ukraine is hoping to get as much help now as it can.
