Concerns over US’s declining stockpiles lead to halt in weapons shipments to Ukraine
The United States is halting some shipments of munitions to Ukraine as concerns have been raised of its declining stockpiles. The decision was taken by Elbridge Colby, Pentagon’s policy chief after a review of the Department of Defense’s current munitions.
The munitions halted consists of air defenses and precision weapons such as Patriot missile interceptors and 155 mm artillery shells, according to Politico. The weapons have been supplied to Ukraine for the past two years, beginning in the Biden administration. Some of the weapons are drawn from the US Department of Defense’s current stockpiles which are then replenished. The others come from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which the US funds, so that they can buy weapons from American defense firms for Ukraine.
The action memo asking to freeze some of the short ordered munitions from the US stockpile to Ukraine was already on Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth’s table for several months as that the DOD went through personnel changes as its civilian workforce was cut. Recently, Hegseth had announced that the US would reduce the total aid it sent to the country in its upcoming defense budget. In June, while giving testimony before lawmakers, he commented that the budget includes hard choices and “reflects the reality that Europe needs to step up more for the defence of its own continent.”
The plans to redirect munitions like artillery shells, tank shells and air defense systems back to US or Israel were already in place since March, according to the official.
At last week’s NATO summit in Netherlands, Trump had said that the Ukraine was looking for “anti-missile missiles” and said that they were “very hard to get”.
The White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said to Fox news that the decision was “made to put America’s interests first following a DoD review of our nations military support and assistance to other countries around the globe.”
The shipments had already been in Poland, when the order came down, according to US military officials who tracked its movements and spoke to Fox News. According to an official, the Trump government has not requested any further aid for Ukraine, however there has been enough leftover from the Biden administration to last the country for several months.
A missile defense expert, Tom Karako, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said that the decisions underscores the Ukraine force’s vulnerability.
The last time the US suspended weapons supply to the country was in March after Trump had claimed to have spent $350 billion.
In 2019, in a move that later was found to be illegal by the Government Accountability Office, the Trump administration had paused a $214 million military aid to Ukraine.
The halt to shipments is a blow to Ukraine as Russia recently launched one of the biggest aerial attacks on the country since the beginning of the war. The US had provided $66 billion worth of weapons to the county since 2022.
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