Here’s How U.S. Aid to Ukraine Might Help on the Battlefield

Now that the Senate has approved a nearly $61 billion aid package to Ukraine, and President Biden has signed it, desperately needed American weapons could be arriving on the battlefield within days.

The weapons package — which has been delayed over political wrangling by House Republicans since last fall — is “a lifeline” for Kyiv’s military, said Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s national security committee. Shortly after approving the funding on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said that the weapons shipments would begin in “a few hours.”

But it will not include everything that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked for as his military struggles to hold firm after two years of war against invading Russian forces.

Here is a look at what Ukraine says it needs, what it is expected to get in the American aid package and whether it will be enough to make an immediate difference.

What Ukraine wants.

Above all, Mr. Zelensky says Ukraine needs artillery ammunition and long-range missiles to strike Russian forces, along with air defenses to protect cities and key infrastructure like military bases, power plants and weapons factories.

“We need to inflict maximum damage on everything that Russia uses as a base for terror and for its military logistics,” Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly address to Ukrainians on Monday.

To do so, he has said, Ukraine needs more long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems — known as ATACMS and pronounced “attack’ems” — to hit behind enemy lines and deep into Russian-held territory. The United States did send a small number of ATACMS, with a range of roughly 100 miles, to Ukraine last year, and they were used to strike two Russian air bases in October.

Ukraine had been asking for a longer-range ATACMS that can strike targets about 190 miles away, and on Wednesday a senior American official confirmed that the Pentagon had already secretly shipped some that were used to strike a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian troops in the country’s southeast overnight on Tuesday.

Artillery ammunition, like the 155-millimeter caliber shells that fit NATO-standard launchers donated by the West, has been in short supply in Ukraine for more than a year, as Russian forces are firing 10 times as many rounds on the battlefield as outgunned Ukrainian troops, Mr. Zelensky said last week.

Mr. Zelensky has also described air defenses — and specifically the American-made surface-to-air antiballistic Patriot missiles system — as “crucial.” And he has been pushing for more than a year for F-16 fighter jets to provide another layer of air defense over Ukraine’s ground war.

What Ukraine will get.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday it would rush a $1 billion military aid package to Ukraine, including shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles and other air defense munitions, 155-millimeter shells, Javelin anti-tank guided missiles, cluster munitions and battlefield vehicles.

It also contains ammunition for the so-called High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, which can launch ATACMS missiles. A U.S. official would not confirm whether ATACMS specifically would be part of the aid, and the Pentagon generally has resisted discussing the missiles’ use in Ukraine, in part out of concern that it could inflame Russia by admitting it was sending long-range weapons to the war.

But in a statement Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky confirmed that ATACMS were part of the package that he described as “exactly the kind of weapons that our soldiers need.”

It did not, however, include another Patriot air-defense system, or specify that it contained additional missiles for the ones Ukraine is already fielding. It is not clear if that could come in future shipments, as Germany and other allies are reportedly demanding. The systems are scarce and expensive, and giving one more to Ukraine could mean pulling it from protecting American assets, either domestically or internationally.

And though Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, repeated on Tuesday that NATO allies were working to deliver F-16 jets to Ukraine, the United States has so far declined to donate any of its warplanes. (The U.S. Air Force, however, has helped train some of the several dozen Ukrainian pilots who so far are learning to fly them.) Officials have said about 12 pilots should be ready to fly the F-16s in combat by July, but as few as six of the jets will have been delivered to Ukraine by then.

Will it be enough?

Although the $61 billion aid package is designated as support for Ukraine, Pentagon officials have said that as much as $48 billion will go to American weapons manufacturers either to replenish U.S. stockpiles that have been nearly emptied over the past two years of war or to build additional arms for Ukraine.

The $1 billion infusion from the Pentagon will come from the remaining funds, and Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, who is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it could be “in transit by the end of the week.” That could immediately help shore up Ukraine’s front line, where forces need to quickly halt Russian drones, jets and light bombers, and prevent Ukraine from losing ground, although another U.S. official cautioned on Wednesday it could take more than a week for the weapons to reach the front lines.

But Ukrainian officials seem skeptical that enough weapons will be delivered quickly or consistently over the coming months to keep up the momentum.

“When we get it, when we have it in our arms, then we do have the chance to take this initiative and to move ahead to protect Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday. But, he said, “it depends on how soon we get this aid.”

Weapons and ammunition sent to Ukraine are often drawn from Pentagon assets in Europe, with shipments coordinated from a staff of up to 500 people based in Germany.

Yet for months, American and other allies have repeatedly warned that they had few weapons to give Ukraine until weapons production could catch up with the war’s voracious demand. That led Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, to question in an interview published on Tuesday where the new package of weapons would be coming from.

“Is this equipment available?” Ms. Markarova told the Ukrainian daily Ukrainska Pravda. “Will we find, and produce, enough equipment quickly enough to get it?”

The funding helps, she said, but questioned whether all the weapons and equipment that it would pay for “is ready for delivery.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Ms. Markarova said.