As funding for Ukraine faces an uncertain future in Congress, the US Army has been left to foot the bill for hundreds of millions of dollars in support for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia over the last few months — and Army officials are increasingly concerned that without new funding, they will have to begin pulling money from other critical projects to continue supporting Kyiv, CNN has reported.
Since October 2023, the beginning of the fiscal year, the Army has spent over $430 million on various operations, including training Ukrainian troops, transporting equipment, and US troop deployments to Europe.
"We're basically taking it out of hide in the Army," a senior Army official told CNN.
So far, that bill has been paid from the Army's Europe and Africa Command. Without a 2024 budget approved by Congress, and without additional funding specifically for Ukraine, the command has roughly $3 billion to pay for $5 billion of operations costs, a second senior Army official explained. That includes not only the operations related to Ukraine support — training and ferrying weapons and equipment to Poland and Ukraine — but other operations for the US command throughout Europe and Africa.
If Congress still hasn't passed new funding for Ukraine within a few months, Army officials say they will have to start making hard decisions and divert money from less critical projects, such as badly needed barracks construction or enlistment incentives amid record-low recruiting.
If the Army doesn't pull funds from elsewhere, Army Europe and Africa's roughly $3 billion budget would run out of money for operations not just related to Ukraine, but elsewhere in Europe and Africa, by the end of May, the second senior Army official told CNN.