The Pentagon says it has nearly $6 billion in funding for Ukraine left that could expire at the end of this month unless Congress or the State Department acts to extend the military's authority to draw weapons from its stockpiles to send to Kyiv.
"We have $5.9 billion left in Ukraine Presidential Drawdown Authority, all but $100 million of which will expire at the end of the fiscal year," Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said Friday. "The department will continue to provide drawdown packages in the near future and is working with Congress to seek an extension of PDA [presidential drawdown] authorities beyond the end of the fiscal year."
A defense official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity, said Congress' monthslong deadlock in passing the supplemental funding bill for Ukraine was a "contributing factor" as to why billions of dollars for weapons remained unspent.
The money was expected to be allocated for Ukraine last year, but the U.S. House was unable to pass the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan until late April of this year. Of that, about $61 billion was earmarked for Ukraine.
The official said the delay left the Pentagon with less time to identify and send military aid to Kyiv from its stockpiles. The nearly $6 billion left in funding amounts to less than 10% of the aid allocated in April to address the conflict in Ukraine.
Speaking in response to a VOA question earlier this month, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the Pentagon would "use everything we can that's available to us to make sure that we are continuing to provide Ukraine what it needs, both in the short term and the long term."
"We're in this fight with Ukraine for the long haul," she said.
Two ways to ensure access
There are two ways to make sure that access to the remaining funds will not expire at the beginning of October, Mykola Murskyj, director of advocacy for the NGO Razom for Ukraine, told VOA.
The first is that Congress has to approve it again. This requires lawmakers to pass a provision that would extend the authority to use the remaining amount in the next budget year.
House members from both sides of the aisle have expressed support for extending the authorities so that all the allocated funding for Kyiv can be used.
"If we need to extend it, we'll extend it," Representative Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told VOA.
Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, added that he would "push to get it done" if the funding was not all spent by the deadline.
The second way to ensure the military can access the remaining funds is for the State Department to notify Congress of its intent to use the funds, according to Murskyj. In this case, lawmakers will not need to vote on the extension, but formal notification must be issued by the secretary of state, as has been done in the past.
A State Department spokesperson would not comment on whether it would issue the extension, saying it would not discuss communications with lawmakers and their staffs, but would continue "to coordinate closely with Congress concerning the steadfast support that the United States, our allies and our partners worldwide are providing to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's premeditated, unprovoked and unjustified war."
Murskyj told VOA his advocacy group was working with members of Congress to extend the funds.
"However, I am not going to put all of my eggs in that basket," he said, because "it is very difficult to predict what Congress will do, and there's always the potential for some kind of last-minute derailment."
In a letter to the administration, members of pro-Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations said extending these funds "would send a powerful message to Ukraine, Russia and American voters that the administration wants Ukraine to win."
Kateryna Lisunova of VOA's Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.
