Global Research

US military aid to Ukraine under President Joe Biden has exceeded $62 billion, the Department of Defense said on December 2. This amount was reached after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on the same day a new arms package for Kiev totaling $725 million from its stockpiles.

“The United States has committed more than $62 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration,” the department said in a statement.

Blinken also announced the allocation of another $725 million military aid package to Ukraine, which included a new batch of anti-personnel landmines, even though Ukraine ratified the Ottawa Convention in 2005, which bans the use, stockpiling, and production of anti-personnel mines.

“Today, I am announcing the delivery of $725 million in additional weapons and equipment for Ukraine’s defense. The United States and more than 50 nations stand united with Ukraine,” Blinken posted on social media on December 2.

The arms package is the largest since April, when Washington sent a shipment worth $1 billion. In addition to mines, Ukraine will also be supplied with anti-tank, anti-drone and other types of ammunition, according to two US officials cited by Bloomberg. The outlet described Biden’s authorization for Ukraine to use American anti-personnel mines, just weeks before the end of the Biden administration, as representing a sudden change from a long-standing policy.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that any shipment containing weapons for Ukraine would be a legitimate target. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the US and NATO are directly involved in the conflict, not only supplying weapons but also training personnel in Britain, Germany, Italy and other countries. The Kremlin said that the West’s bombardment of Ukraine with weapons does not contribute to the negotiations and will have a negative effect.

Nonetheless, Washington expects Kiev to use anti-personnel mines and the other supplied weapons to reinforce its defensive lines and not in an offensive capacity.

Bloomberg noted that officials said last month that the US Defense Department had the authority to remove about $6.8 billion from Pentagon inventories but acknowledged growing doubts and risks to the US military’s capabilities as the Biden administration enters its final stretch.

The White House called on Congress to provide an additional $24 billion in security assistance for Ukraine at the end of November as US arms stocks are dwindling,” the outlet reported.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding Donald Trump’s return to the presidency due to a possible withdrawal of military aid to Kiev, the Biden administration is reportedly seeking to allocate these requested funds as “emergency spending.” Bloomberg reported that the White House had requested $8 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which funds long-term arms contracts with US defense contractors.

Biden is not the only world leader scrambling to throw away more wasted resources at Ukraine before Trump enters the White House next month.

German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz made a surprise visit to Kiev on December 2 for the first time in two and a half years to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky and announce the delivery of additional weapons worth €650 million.

On his social media, Scholz said he had taken a night train to Kiev to express “our support for Ukraine will not waiver” and announced new arms deliveries to the country.

“I would like to make clear, here on the ground, that Germany will remain Ukraine’s strongest supporter in Europe. In my meeting with Zelensky, I will announce further arms worth €650 million, which are to be delivered before the end of December,” he wrote on the social network X.

However, unlike Biden, Scholz maintains communications with the Kremlin. A few weeks before the visit, on 15 November, he even had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The conversation focused on the Ukraine conflict, and judging by official statements, both sides reaffirmed their divergent positions on the matter.

Although Scholz has opened communications directly with Putin, this evidently has not stopped the German leader from taking detrimental actions that prolonged the war, such as providing an additional €650 Million to battle Russian forces. It is more likely that Scholz spoke with Putin begrudgingly because the Ukraine war will begin to wind down once Trump becomes president, meaning that a new reality will emerge, one that is too early to predict how that will shape.

It has been known for months that Biden would not be president after January, but there was hope that his policies would continue under Kamala Harris. Since this will not happen, he is using his last opportunities as president to throw more money away to Ukraine’s futile war effort against Russia instead of prioritizing the longtime economically suffering of average American citizen.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: President Joe Biden travels to Kyiv, Ukraine Monday, February 20, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)