‘Good day for peace’ as Joe Biden signs $93bn Ukraine arms deal

Package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan signed off after months of political wrangling — as it emerges US secretly approved shipment of ATACMS missiles to Kyiv in March.

Joe Biden speaks after signing the foreign aid bill on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden declared the US would immediately renew weapons deliveries to Ukraine after signing into law a bill that had been delayed for months and provoked a bitter debate over Washington’s involvement in overseas wars.

Heralding it as “a good day for America ... for Europe and ... for world peace”, the President said the $US95bn package – $US61bn ($93.6bn) of which is assigned to Ukraine – would quickly help to restore Kyiv’s depleted ammunition stocks with air defence missiles and artillery shells.

In addition, Washington secretly approved the delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) in early March, allowing Kyiv’s forces to use US weapons to hit a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and ­forces in another occupied area overnight on Wednesday.

A senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that what Mr Biden called a “consequential” package would not fix all Kyiv’s problems at the front, nor allow it to fight Russia on an equal footing. Mykhailo Podolyak said that breaking the deadlock in congress over sending the aid this week would give a psychological boost to Ukrainian troops and send an important signal to Moscow of continued Western support for Kyiv.

He said it meant Ukraine would be able to “stabilise the frontline” and plan counter-­offensives, but Ukraine would need greater and more powerful resources to drive out the Russian army. “To solve all problems, we need many more long-range missiles. We will need to solve the problem of Russian tactical aviation – until it is solved, we will have problems along the frontline,” he told Meduza, a Russian opposition website outlawed by the Kremlin.

The $US61bn “is not some gigantic amount that will completely cover Ukraine’s arms deficit, taking into account the amount of money Russia spends annually on military equipment,” he said. “We are not talking about the parity of forces here.”

He estimated that Russia’s annual spending on the war, including supplies from allies such as North Korea and Iran, was between $US250bn and $US320bn.

The US had long resisted supplying Kyiv with long-range missiles over fears that they could be used to hit targets within Russia, escalating the conflict. It is not clear what guarantees Washington received from Ukraine before sending the ATACMS system last month. Mr Podolyak told Meduza Kyiv had always adhered to an agreement with Western allies not to use their weapons to hit targets inside Russia “but we have our own constructions and these are being improved”.

Mr Zelensky last week said the aid package would give Ukraine a “chance for victory” more than two years into the war, the biggest conflict in Europe since 1945.

The renewed US aid cannot come soon enough for Kyiv’s beleaguered forces.

In February, as Ukraine’s supplies of artillery shells dwindled, Russia was able to seize Avdiivka, a strategically and symbolically important town in the eastern Donetsk region.

Russian troops are now trying to press home their advantage, advancing 5km in 10 days in the Donetsk region, in contrast to last year’s static frontlines.

Ukraine is also suffering from a deficit of troops, despite a recent move to lower the age of mobilisation from 27 to 25. An estimated 650,000 men of fighting age have fled the country in two years.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said this week its consulates would no longer provide new passports to men aged 18 to 60 living abroad. “Our country is at war. Staying abroad does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to the homeland,” Dmytro Kuleba wrote on X.

The Times