The steady flow of Western military aid to Ukraine over the past 18 months has left ammunition stockpiles near the “bottom of the barrel,” a top NATO official warned Tuesday as questions mount about how long the U.S. and Europe can afford to keep backing Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Royal Netherlands navy Adm. Rob Bauer, NATO’s top military official, made clear that the massive amount of aid to Ukraine has had a real impact in a speech at the Warsaw Security Forum.
“The bottom of the barrel is now visible,” Adm. Bauer said at the forum, according to media reports. “We give away weapons systems to Ukraine, which is great, and ammunition, but not from full warehouses. We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe.”
Questions about continued aid to Ukraine are also at the forefront of U.S. politics. Leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination — including former President Donald Trump — have taken a skeptical stance on open-ended American aid for Ukraine moving forward. Congressional Republicans over the weekend pulled Ukraine aid from a last-minute spending bill that averted a government shutdown.
One core concern among skeptical Republicans and other critics is the effect American aid is having on the country’s stockpiles. A lack of crucial ammunition could be devastating to the U.S. if it finds itself in an unexpected battle with China in the Pacific, for example.
The U.S. has sent about $44 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022, including artillery, anti-aircraft systems, missile defense batteries and a host of other systems, weapons and equipment.
SEE ALSO: ‘Acceptable levels of risk’: Backing Ukraine won’t deplete U.S. arsenal, Milley says
The European Union and its member states have given Ukraine $88 billion in total aid since February 2022, the bloc said in a fact sheet released late last month, with at least $27 billion of that going directly to the Ukrainian military.
Pentagon officials conceded Tuesday that the military will need more money from Congress to replenish U.S. stockpiles, though they stressed the nation will never be at risk of running out of ammunition.
“We’ve been very public here from the podium here saying that we’re not going to drop below certain levels,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters Tuesday. “But we do know that replenishing our stocks is a priority for this department, as we continue to send and flow aid to Ukraine.”
Retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, who left his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last week, told The Washington Times in August that the level of aid to Ukraine does not and will not endanger American national security.
“We monitor this every day for [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] and for the president. We give them reports every day,” Gen. Milley told The Times in an exclusive interview.
The defense secretary’s “guidance to us is, ‘Do not, in any category of munitions, take us below levels that are acceptable levels of risk.’ I’m not going to go into those details, but we monitor it very, very closely,” he said. “So we are not going to jeopardize our own national security needs and capabilities to engage in combat operations with ammunition stockages, etc. We’re not going to put ourselves at that level of risk.”
But there seems to be reason for concern. Over the summer, President Biden told CNN that the U.S. is “low” on 155mm artillery rounds, a type of ammunition critical to Ukraine’s fight against the Russians.
Combined with the virtual stalemate on the ground in Ukraine, the shrinking weapons stockpiles will fuel questions about how long the U.S. and NATO can afford to back Kyiv without a clear plan to end the war.
EU officials traveled to Kyiv this week to offer reassurances that the aid will continue to flow. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell said, told reporters in Kyiv on Monday that the bloc remains solidly behind Ukraine.
“The EU remains united in its support to Ukraine … I don’t see any member state folding on their engagement,” Mr. Borrell said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy struck a similar tone. He posted on social media videos and photos of himself greeting EU ministers in Kyiv.
“I appreciate the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Kyiv that proved unity in support for Ukraine,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in a post on X. “Continued EU military aid for Ukraine is important, both immediate and long-term, as well as financial assistance and sanctions pressure on Russia.”